A Friendly Debate with an Atheist about the Slippery Slope of Same-Sex “Marriage”; and A Black and White Pastor Talk about a Congregation Merge

I'm about to have a friendly debate with an atheist who doesn't believe that same-sex marriage leads to a slippery slope with marriage. Uh It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 Truth.

That's 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Ah, the slippery slope argument: Is it true? Is it real?

Is it something that we can demonstrate? We can show that when you open up the door to redefining marriage and say that two men or two women can, quote, marry, that it leads to a slippery slope where polygamists and polyamorists and those arguing for consensual adult incest and other unions, that it opens the door to them? I say, yeah, self-evident. Can we easily demonstrate it? I say yes.

My guest, former Christian, now current host of the Real Atheology podcast, Justin Schieber, disputes that. And we're going to have a friendly discussion about that today on the line of fire.

So I'm going to dive right in. If you'd like to get in the conversation either way to raise your point of difference to me or to my guest, give us a call at 866-34TRUTH-866. 348-7884. Without further ado, though, let's dive right in. Justin, great to have you back on the line of fire.

Hey, Dr. Braun, thanks for having me. Sure thing. All right, so just to give the brief recap, I had. spoken about this many times, written about it.

Posted videos, books, different things, but I had posted something on Twitter about the new definitions of marriage or people. people marrying themselves or whatever it is, marrying an animal. And I just said, look, all part of the slippery slope. And you disputed that. You felt, no, there's not a direct connection between the redefining of marriage with same-sex unions and these others.

And you said, let's discuss it.

So, Justin, we've just got a couple minutes here in this first segment. But why not give me just the essence, then we'll unpack this, the essence of why you don't see this as part of a larger slippery slope. Yes, sure.

So I think that one of the most important things to do is to distinguish between kind of a social or religious idea of marriage and the legal civil institution of marriage.

So only one of those actually brings with it additional legal rights and responsibilities. People have always been free to call whatever they want marriage. You can, quote unquote, marry the Eiffel Tower. That doesn't mean it's legally recognized. And so my is essentially my argument is that there are independent reasons for not including these other doomsday scenarios that you lay out.

There are independent arguments for stopping the slope When it comes to the legal institution of marriage, the social institution of marriage, you can call whatever you want marriage. It doesn't make it legally recognized. All right, so just to go back on that, two things. One, if I can show you. That redefining marriage has opened the door for a larger societal discussion of the redefinition of marriage.

Can that ultimately? influence the courts? That's one question. And the other question is, what if I can show you that these different groups are going to the courts and using as a precedent the argument that marriage has been redefined for homosexuals? Would that then prove my point?

So okay, so you're asking whether or not the merely the discussion of these things would influence the courts? In other words, if the society makes a shift, right, because of same-sex marriage opening up a whole ideological and social door and conceptual door. And now that continues to spill into media and other things. And then that leads to the Supreme Court recognizing that. The Supreme Court is often recognizing what's happening in society.

What if society begins to shift more and more to openness, to polygamy, polyamory, other things like that? Won't that ultimately influence the courts? Tell you what, to be fair, because we've got a break here. Chew on that for a second. We will be right back, and you can respond to that question.

So, here's where we're gonna start. Has society changed its view on marriage due to same-sex marriage? And can that then influence the courts in the future? We'll be right back. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.

Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 Truth. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us today, Alana Fire, having a friendly discussion with atheist, former Christian, current host of the Real Atheology Podcast, an examination of contemporary philosophy of religion from an atheistic perspective, Justin Schieber.

And we are discussing today. Whether the redefining of marriage to, say, two men or two women can, quote, marry, has that led to a slippery slope that has opened the door, say, to polygamists or polyamorists or others?

So, Justin, right before the break, I was replying to the distinction you made between society changing its view where someone can marry the Eiffel Tower or marry a dog, but it's not legal, and then legal institutions where the courts recognize a change. And I was asking you if society can influence the direction that the courts go. In other words, 30, 40 years ago, almost nobody was talking about the idea of same-sex, quote, marriage. As it gained ground among the general population, then ultimately, the courts went with a shift in the popular opinion and ended up redefining marriage. I'm arguing that the same thing is happening now with polygamy, with polyamory, even with consensual adult incest.

that changes in the society will ultimately reflect changes in the courts.

So your response to that, sir? Sure.

So, when it comes to civil institutions, civil institutions exist for a reason. They have a purpose behind them. And so, any proposed change or alteration of that civil institution will need to be assessed on its own merits as to its ability to fulfill the ends of that institution. And what I'm arguing is that these other doomsday scenarios that you're bringing up, They not only don't contribute to that end, but they also plausibly bring with them narrow consequences that are actually bad consequences.

Some of them have um Seemingly uh Unsurmountable Unsurmountable pragmatic problems with them.

So I'm not at all worried in the way that you are about these other things following from them. Moreover, people have always. Had arrangements that they've called marriage. Long before gay marriage, you had someone marry the Eiffel Tower. That doesn't mean that it's legally recognized, and I see no reason to think that it ever would be.

Ah, all right, so let's first talk about it on the popular level, all right? Do you Recognize that on a popular level, that the same media that I know you're in Canada, but I I think a lot of the shows are similar. The same media that was aggressively pushing Things like Homosexuality, Will and Grace, shows like that, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, that they are also pushing things like polygamy now, big love, sister wives, my five wives. They're pushing polyamory shows like Married and Dating. They are more and more celebrating adult consensual incest to the point that a poll, Gallup poll a few years back indicated that acceptance of polygamy in America went from 7% to 14% in just a couple of years.

Obviously, the influence of the media.

So, aside from the legal question, which we'll come back to, and I respect that, can you see a shift in society as a whole that is part of a a larger sexual revolution, say. Sure.

And I think it's perfectly fine. I don't see any problem. In fact, if someone wants to have a someone wants to argue that there is a moral problem with polygamy, then I'd be interested in hearing that argument. The biblical patriarchs used it. Everyone has used it for a long time.

It doesn't make it right. I'm just saying that if there's an argument there, it's not forthcoming. Moreover, there are pragmatic reasons to think that polygamy would never come about.

So for example, the change from heterosexual marriage to include gender neutral norms when having a marriage contract, that's a very simple change. But once you bring in multiple parties into a contract, There are pragmatic legal reasons to think that that's just so remarkably implausible that that could be fit into a larger legal framework. that it could be respected by the law in that way.

So I just I don't see I find this to be a bizarre argument. I don't think there's any pragmatic legal way to bring this about. That that said, if there is a way that it could bring about, I have absolutely no objection to polygamous marriage. Got it. All right.

So first, because we've had polygamy here long before, same-sex quote marriage, and I would say that redefining marriage so that it's now gender-neutral is a far more radical step than polygamy. And the very arguments that you raised about the massive changes it requires, I say we're witnessing right in front of our eyes. Because once you say by definition, you can have a union that cannot, by definition, procreate in itself. and that by definition will guarantee that a child raised is either raised apart from mother or father, then some of the most fundamental norms of marriage have just been abolished. But let's focus on this.

Please give me a legal reason Uh as to why Two adult brothers should not be allowed to marry. Two adult brothers, I don't see that there would be a legal reason. Do you think that there's a moral reason here? Oh, of course. I I see the necessity of having a wall against incest.

Once you can look at family members as potential sexual romantic objects, all hell can break loose in in that respect. But that being said, Since you're talking about the contractual issues, there's no difference in a contractual issue between two men who are not blood related and two men who are blood related having this new union, correct? Yes.

So the problems that we have with incest generally have to do they're tied to the fact that there are problems that come about when people try to reproduce.

So, when it comes to a legal framework, because we do not want to ask questions of the of couples We generally think it's a bad idea to allow those kinds of things.

So there's a legal argument for it. But two brothers. That's why I asked about two brothers. Yeah, yeah.

So two brothers so morally don't I don't have a problem with it. But when it comes to legally, I think that, that would be quite a problem because it's going to introduce issues of privacy when it talks about procreative ambitions. Obviously, the brothers is not going to be an issue there. You're guaranteeing that a same-sex couple, by definition, cannot procreate. And again, the only reason that the government gets involved in marriage is because marriage conveys benefits on society.

Therefore, society conveys benefits on marriage. And the benefits are, as a norm, procreation and joining the child to the mother and father. That's the only reason that the government gets involved in marriage. Otherwise, it's people's private lives. Of course it's true.

No, marriage brings marriage brings with it So many more additional benefits to just becoming an incubator for the next generation. No, actually without that there is no next generation, sir. Without that, there is no next generation. Historically, the only reason that our government has gotten involved in marriage is for the reasons I just stated. And it's understood that the here, if you want to talk about, for example, health risks with incest, well, health risks for men having sex with men are off the charts compared to a heterosexual couple.

So is the government going to intervene then and say, well, we can't allow two men to marry because there's much higher rates of HIV and AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases? I want to bring the discussion back to the point of there being only one or two reasons that are child-centered for the state to have recognized institutions of marriage. Those are the primary reasons.

Well, so even if they're the Primary reason. That doesn't mean that there aren't good reasons to have people recognize marriage who have no child-rearing ambitions whatsoever. Right. You can go. But you now redefine it by nature, so you guarantee some households cannot procreate within themselves and will separate a child from mother or father for life.

That's in the worst interest of the child.

So the government should get involved. I mean, polygamy is far less intrusive. Polygamy has worked for centuries around the world, and there are many nations with polygamy to this day. And it does bring about procreation and it does draw on a child to a mother and father. That's why I said redefining marriages is far further down the slope than polygamy.

Yeah, I don't see a problem with polygamy. I'm saying that there is a legal problem there when it comes to whether or not we could even form a coherent legal framework to take account for those complex relationships. But when you talk about changing civil institutions as we move forward in time. I think that if we don't have, at least in principle, the ability to make our institutions malleable, then that's a huge problem. If we fail to adapt and mature our institutions to better fit our growing understanding of civil life and liberty, we undermine its very ability to serve the purpose for which it was created.

And it's not really. What you're saying is the slippery slope is not bad. I mean that's the bottom line, that you can't really argue against why two men shouldn't marry and theoretically you have no problem with polygamy and if society changes and grows, that's the whole thing. I'm saying society is going in the wrong direction. Let's say you call it an upward move.

Saying that, right? You're saying it's bad, but you've given no argument for why it wouldn't. Contribute to societal stability when you have people joining us. But that wasn't our discussion, sir. I'm happy to debate that.

I'm very, very happy to debate that. But that wasn't the issue. The issue was: when you redefine marriage, does it open the door to? Of course it is. I mean, you're basically arguing my point from another angle.

You're saying, yeah, well, society is growing and improving, and we should have the ability to change things and be malleable. That's the whole point. That once you start playing with it, once you start. I'm sorry, go ahead. I'm arguing that that's just simply not a bad thing.

If, for example, I just want to be clear, and again, to be fair, you'll start when we pick up, okay? Just to be clear, we've now shifted. The initial argument was there is no necessary slippery slope. There's no necessary Way you can see that you can get from one point to the other point.

Now you're saying, but it's not a problem to get from one point to the other point.

So you're Shift it. From what I can tell, if I'm wrong, set me straight. It's fire we want, for fire we please stand the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34 TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us today on the line of fire, having a friendly debate with atheist Justin Schieber. He is the host of the Real Atheology podcast.

We're debating whether redefining marriage to include the union of two men or two women leads to a slippery slope where you have all kinds of other marital unions that are accepted, like polygamy, like polyamory, and others.

So we're in the midst of this discussion. And Justin, you're a careful thinker, and I'm not trying to play games here, and I'm not trying to misrepresent you. Please help me if I'm missing something. I thought initially your argument was that there are legal reasons why Redefining marriage for the union of two men to women will not lead to, say, polygamy, polyamory, or even adult incestuous unions being recognized by the courts. Then it seemed to me you were saying, look, society should be malleable, the laws should be malleable, and it's fine to have some of these other definitions, so it's fine if the courts change them, which to me.

is arguing my point, but just saying the slippery slope isn't bad. Tell me what I'm missing, because it sounded like you've shifted in what you're saying. No, I don't believe I've shifted.

So here's my statements, and they're all perfectly consistent. What I'm saying is that one, I'm objecting to your point that the slip is necessary or even inevitable from the expanding civil marriage to include same sex unions. I'm saying that these slopes to these other things, it's neither necessary nor is it inevitable. But I'm also saying that there are Uh reasons That are both pragmatic and moral reasons to prevent some of those things if. It you know, to to show you the first point.

And thirdly, I'm saying that I don't agree with you whether whether or not these things are necessarily good or bad. Those are all perfectly consistent positions. And I've been arguing that from the beginning here. I'm saying that there are good principled reasons to think that it wouldn't happen. Your claim that it is going to happen is completely unfounded.

You haven't actually interacted with any of the reasons that I've provided to show that these things don't contribute uh to the end of marriage outside of polygamy, which I see no moral problem with. But maybe we could talk about your moral argument against polygamy to see if it has any weight at all. Because biblically speaking, I don't really know that you have a ground there. Yeah, well, polygamy is very easy to argue against based on scriptures, contrary to God's ideal. But again, I do find your points candidly to be somewhat contradictory, but let's unpack them as separate.

Okay, when it comes to popular opinion, first thing that is easily demonstrated is the same media and the same pop culture that celebrated homosexuality and helped bring that to more and more national acceptance to the point that the courts could rule in favor of it, despite a massive redefinition of marriage, basically unknown in a major way throughout history, that marriage was now gender neutral. It would be like saying that a plain. Excuse me? Merit has changed How many times throughout history? But it has always had, unless you had like a Nero quote marriage to his male lover, marriage has always been the union of a man and woman.

Even in cultures where homosexuality was celebrated, it was not considered marriage because marriage by definition has always been the union of a man and woman. It could have been a man and several women. It could have been other things like that. But it always required male female. This is the most fundamental redefinition of marriage in human history.

We have to recognize that. And again, by definition, it gets away from two of the most fundamentally important parts of marriage. Not the only, but two of the most fundamentally important parts of marriage. By definition, it cannot procreate in itself, and it cannot join the child to a mother and father. This is a welfare issue in terms of what is in the best interest, what is the best welfare of the state, is to have kids raised in an environment with a mother and father.

And if we dip below 2.11 children per woman during childbearing years, there will be no future of any country when you get down to lower procreation rates.

So this has always just been a matter of the ongoing survival of the human race and the best interest of the human race. But the same media that celebrated these things, celebrating polyalomy, polygamy, adult incest, and now these things are coming to the courts. It is the slippery slope.

So in the state of Utah, for example, polygamists have already succeeded in having one law against polygamy removed and one of their arguments is, hey, look, if Heather can have two mommies, why can't Heather have two mommies and a daddy? And there is no logical reason to say why that cannot happen. And then you have, say, cases of adult incest where lawyers have gone to the courts and said if two men or two women could marry, why can't this adult man and say an adult son or an adult, why can't they be together? And a group of German ethicists have now concluded that there's no moral objection to adult consensual incest. This is part of a larger shifting tide, hence the slippery slope.

I mean, to me, it's self-evident. It's undeniable. It's happening in front of our eyes, and the courts are not dealing with these issues on an ongoing basis. Yeah, the fact that these are that there are people attempting this in no way proves your point that it's inevitable. There have been people arguing for legislation on all different in all different ways.

It has no logical connection to your central point here.

Well, of course it does. It goes little by little.

Society shifts, and then shifts start to come in the courts, and then more and more rulings, and then things that you never would have thought were acceptable become acceptable. Of course, it's, I can't guarantee it, but I can say this is the direction we're heading. That's all the slippery slope says. This is the direction we're heading. The very fact that we're even discussing whether polygamy should be legalized, whether polyamory should be legalized, whether consensual adult incest should be legalized, it already proves the point, the fact that these things are even being discussed at all.

And you have a half million plus polyamorous saying, or families saying, hey, we're living like this. One of the courts is going to recognize it. They march and the gay pride marches and say we're next.

So here's an interesting issue, though. you've been arguing that marriage is by definition one man, one woman, right? But then at the same time, you have the Bible referring to David's many wives. You have also when David kills Bathsheba's husband in order to get with her, you have God saying, Well, I wish you would have told me, I would have given you many more wives. If it would have prevented you from killing this man, right?

So, God has no problem granting people more wives if it means that it'll, you know. Suffice for their needs. Is that everything the Bible says about polygamy? No. No, the Bible says that the Bible is written by multiple different authors who disagree on many fundamentalism.

No, actually, they're too much. The Bible says that they're not going to make your point.

Well, first, I didn't bring the Bible up. You did.

Okay. I've talked about the definition of marriage in history, always included the man and woman. I'm perfectly happy. Justin, I assure you, sir, I assure you, I'm perfectly happy to debate what the Bible says. But what does the Bible warn us about?

It tells us about the negative consequences. First, Adam and Eve, not Adam and Eve, and Yvette and Yvonne. That's where things start. Number one. Number two, what do we see?

That David's many wise led to his destruction, that Solomon's many wise led to his destruction, that these things were harmful, that Jacob's two wise was always painful and difficult. What does Jesus then say in the New Testament? He reiterates Matthew 19, 4 through 6, one man, one woman for life. What does Paul say? You can't be a leader in the church.

Church, unless you're married to one woman. You can't be married to multiple women, and you're supposed to follow the example of your leader.

So polygamy was allowed, but it was never God's ideal. But either way, either way. Always, every ingredient in the Bible, outside marriage, required a man and a woman. Change that is to radically redefine it. Once you redefine it, you render it meaningless.

It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRU. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. I'm speaking with atheist Justin Schieber, host of the Real Atheology podcast, about whether redefining marriage to include union of two men and two women opens the door for further redefinitions. If you missed any part of the broadcast, just go to the lineofire.org later today and click on listen. Justin, let's try this angle here. In your view, Which is a more radical redefinition of marriage?

saying that two men or two women could marry or accepting polygamy, just in your own opinion. Um I would I don't know, I guess I would argue polygamy is more radical just because it It it is such a added complexity to the issue. rather than just making the the The the relationship. Obviously, relationships require at least two people to be involved. And so at the base level, a relationship and a legal recognition of that relationship Makes more sense on one-on-one, but that doesn't exclude the others.

I'm just arguing that you're probably right in that. expansion than just making the gender uh neutral aspect of it.

Okay, and what about this? You say by definition relationship requires at least two. What about people practicing, what's it called, salogamy?

So they're marrying themselves. There's even a growing industry now of people who provide for weddings and things like that. And in their mind, this is real and valid, and they are doing this. Why shouldn't the government recognize that. In other words, why should the government recognize one relationship and not this one?

But to these people, it's very real.

Well, because such quote unquote relationships don't in any way contribute to the end of marriage, which is societal stability.

So it doesn't contribute when it comes to combining resources. To combining financial resources, to combining social resources. Much of the benefit that we get from marriage is to when people are your first line of defense of moral, physical, and emotional breakdown. That way, not every time you go into debt, you have to require, you know, um Uh welfare or something, right? Why not just live together?

Why not just live together then?

Solves the same problem, it's not as messy. That would work too. But the point is that the state of the world is not a very good thing. Why does the state make a big fuss about marriage? Again, without question, historically, The main The main purpose of people coming together in marriage is to join together for life, to produce children for the next generation.

And why do we never have to do that? To join those children by fathers and mothers. That has always been, sir, the norm and the most basic. Not that every couple procreates, but that is the norm. You don't establish something that cannot possibly fulfill that norm and make it its new norm.

The idea of people sharing resources and things like that, for much of world history, it was the man that was working and the mother that was caring for the kids. She was not bringing in extra resources or this wasn't for debt reduction and things like that. Plenty of people live together these days to pool their resources, but that does not bring about what marriage brings about. But here's the thing. When people ask for a marriage license, we are not even allowed to ask them whether or not they have plans to having kids.

We are not allowed to ask them whether or not they physically can have kids. We do not care about the potential for child rearing of the benefits that are not involved with kids that marriage still brings to the society at large. No, it's the exact opposite. It's because it's presumed that a couple getting married is going to have sex and that the majority of them are going to have children and that they want to have children. That's just the way it goes.

But you do not set up a new norm that guarantees, you do not set up a new norm that guarantees that they cannot reproduce in themselves and that guarantees that if they have a way to bring a child into the world, they separate it from the mother and father. That ultimately, for the stability of society, is the worst thing to do, not the best thing to do.

So simply, societal stability argues in every way against. redefining marriage. But still, I haven't heard anything to explain why the same legal arguments, when they come to the courts, won't be used to further redefine marriage. We're seeing steps in those directions already. All right, got one more segment with our guests.

We'll take your calls to. Oh God of burning, cleansing flame. Send the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us today on the line of fire 866-34Truth. I'm going to open up the phones momentarily. I'm speaking with Justin Schieber.

He is the host of the Real Atheology podcast. Justin, let me read something to you from a representative from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association. She says, consenting adults have the right, the charter-protected right, to form the families that they want to form. Do you accept that statement? Uh sure, but I'm not actually from Canada.

Oh, okay. Yeah, got it. All right, fine. Your protagonist and friend in the The previous debate we had on the air, Randall Rouse was from Canada.

So you're you're based where, sir? Michigan. Michigan. All right.

Well, in the north, anyhow. In the north. All right.

Sorry for that misplacement there. In any case, this statement, the woman who argued consenting allegs have the right to charter protect your right to form the families that they want to form, she was arguing for. Polygamy. And then Matthew Galuzzo, who is the attorney for Professor David Epstein, who was charged with carrying on a three-year consensual affair with his adult daughter. He said it's okay for homosexuals to do whatever they want in their own home.

How is this so different? We have to figure out why some behavior is tolerated and some is not.

So ultimately, the question is, don't people have the right to form these unions? And shouldn't the government then recognize them to give them some type of sanctity or some type of recognition so that, hey, If you want to have more stability with gay couples being together, then have more stability with polygamous polyamorous by sanctioning it. Wouldn't that be the same logic?

Well, again, there are independent reasons for not want to to grant uh legal sanction to pol to um to incestuous marriages. That's That much is obvious. I don't know why we're still debating that.

Well, two brothers. We still haven't gone anywhere with why it's wrong for two brothers. In Ireland, now that they have voted to redefine marriage, one of the leading advocates for that, a congressman there who himself is gay, said, what about first cousins who were same-sex? Why can't we go there? It's a taboo.

Why not?

So legislatively, if we want to have a coherent legislative system, we need to legislate in broad categories, right? We don't legislate Oh, in specific circumstances where you're two brothers, then it's okay, right? What we do is we have broad. Um broad ledger That applies to all these different categories. Here, anyone from the same sex, any consent, anyone from the same sex, that's broad.

Anyone from the same sex can marry. How's that? As long as they're consenting adults.

So that covers incestuous as well. That's a broad category. Anyone who's same sex can marry. There are reasons, independent reasons.

Well, why why can't two brothers marry? I don't know how many times I had to repeat this. But I haven't gotten an answer yet. We're talking about incestuous marriage, the category of incestuous marriage. There are reasons, privacy reasons.

That the state shouldn't inquire about the details. And so we call it. What details? What details? Two men.

Justin, two men. What details? Who doesn't want to marry? The courts can't say are you brothers or not? That's invading their privacy.

Two brothers, they're 30 years old, they're twins. I have no moral problem with it. The point is that. Give me a legal reason against it. Again, the l the legal reason would be about the broadness of legal reg legislation that enters that.

But it's broad. It's totally broad. If you're of the same sex, you can marry. How how much broader could it be? If you're talking about that specific scenario, again, I have no problem with it.

Well, the slippery slope then, that's my whole argument. If you can do the one, you can do the other. Without the one, you don't get to the other. Of course, that's clear. All right, how about this?

You say that marriage is, quote, for the stability of society, but we know full well it's the open secret that gay men still tend to sleep around, and that very, very few are monogamous in the same way that heterosexual couples are monogamous. In fact, they call it monogamish. They redefine it.

So you still have the problem of sexually transmitted diseases. You still have the problem of lack of stability, which cannot equal the stability of a heterosexual home. Why should the courts go there? It's got all these other issues. I don't understand what's the actual inference being made here.

If the inference is saying that we shouldn't allow these protections for same sex individuals because some of them still bring with them the uh The what's the word? the liabilities of single life with them I mean, that that's not a valid inference because that You're criminalizing the broad category for the behavior of some of them. No, no, it's the majority, number one. Number two, we're saying it's still not marriage in the same sense that it's heterosexual marriage. Number three, you're saying that the whole thing is about stability.

Well, this really doesn't bring the stability. Number four, you're saying one reason against the marriage. There are a lot of heterosexual marriages. that are open. Is that something that you would like to end?

Is that something that you would like to say we shouldn't allow marriage we shouldn't allow open marriage?

Well, but the whole thing is once you call it open marriage, you don't get married and call it open marriage. You get married and start fooling around with others. That's wrong. No, if you want to have multiple partners that have it all recognized, but again, this is the exception to the rule. The norm among gay men is that they are not monogamous.

That's the norm, and it's widely reported even gay publications. This is not some internet conspiracy from the Illuminati that I'm repeating. And so you have the fact that they can't procreate by nature. You have the fact that if they bring a child into the world, that child is guaranteed to be separated from father and mother. You have the norm that they have more sexually transmitted diseases.

And you have the norm that their relationships are less stable. Why in the world do we completely redefine marriage for that? When you bring marriage into the picture, it brings with it some stability. The point being that's the same for everybody, the same for polygamists, polyamorous, everybody.

So do it for everybody. Bring in some of the things. And again, I have no problem with that. I don't know where this inference is going.

Well, it's a slippery slope then. Exactly. If you can do it for one, you can do it for the other. I mean, I think the whole debate, you proved my point eloquently from beginning to end. There's no singular social to show that my three positions here are inconsistent.

I've argued consistently, and you don't like the view, but that's fine. I guess we'll just, you know, maybe you have some kind of a bet with someone about these things. Maybe you'll marry a lobster down in the future. It does not.

Well, maybe a Martian just took you over, and you're actually a robot, and it's not even a human being speaking. Let's not be silly here, okay, Justin? Let's not be silly. That's what I've been asking from you from the beginning of this conversation. And I've given it to you.

Tell you what, here's what we're going to do. State your first point. I'll give you my quick answer. We'll do this really shotgun fashion. First point: your first argument.

I've said that none of these things are inevitable. All of these things have principled reasons, or at least the ones that I'm against. All of them have principled or pragmatic reasons against them. All right.

And what you have said along the way is really there is no principled or pragmatic reason against most of them, and you have no issue with them. And I've demonstrated that this is the direction we are going. Second point. I'd like to say well, okay, so my second point is that there's nothing wrong with polygamy. Do you have an objection to that?

Well, again, that's not the argument. The argument was not, is there anything wrong with polygamy? The argument was once we redefine marriage. I'm coming back to your points. Our debate is about once you redefine marriage, does it open up the door?

To a slippery slope. Slippery slope is not inevitable. It means that's the direction it is likely going. And the answer is yes. We see it in society, views shifting.

We see it in the media, pushing for new things, and we see things coming to the courts, and we see little by little even the chipping away of these things. All of these relationships you're referring to that are the end product of the slippery slope happened long before and have been happening long before the gay marriage thing. Gay marriage did absolutely nothing to that. It's totally false. Totally false.

Gay marriage opened the door. You didn't have the media celebrating polygamy before it celebrated gay marriage. You didn't have the media celebrating incestuous relationships the way they do now. It was the norm. You didn't have, no one ever heard of polyamory.

Now the polyamorous march and the gay pride pervades and say we're 20, 30 years behind where the gay rights movement is. I know you're being redefining marriage on every level. Redefining is the norm for thousands of years. Redefining marriage on every level. to pick up a book.

You actually insulted. You insult yourself, not me with these arguments. Marriage through history has always required two fundamental elements: a male and a female. You could have more than one, but you always had a male and a female, even in societies. Justin, please.

Even in societies, even in societies that celebrated homosexual unions in certain contexts, marriage was understood to be male and female for many reasons. And the most fundamental things about marriage have always been known and are not a mystery. Procreation and Joining the children to a mother and father, that is the norm. When you make that now the impossibility, the one thing that cannot happen, you fundamentally redefine it, thereby render it meaningless. Hey, we've gone around on this.

I appreciate you wanting to come on and debate it. We're going to have to leave it here, and we'll post this on YouTube, obviously, the audio, and folks can weigh in there. We'll let you know when it's up, but I do appreciate you coming on to have this dialogue with me. Thanks for having me. All right, you bet.

My guest was Justin Sheeber. host of the Real Atheology podcast. All right, friends, we come back. I want to take your calls in the remaining time that we have and get your thoughts as well on this lively debate that we just had. Shake the nation.

Change the world. Change the world. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUT.

Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. Thanks for joining us on the line of fire, 866-34TRUTH. I hope you appreciated that debate, found it helpful. Let's go to the phones.

Thanks so much for holding. We start in Brooklyn with Yvonne. Welcome to the line of fire. Thank you. Um um conversation is, um the courthouse, first of all, I I feel um have um bitten the apple, so to speak, um, as a serpent.

And the thing is I think it started with until contested uh divorce. Yes, ma'am.

Okay. And the thing is, that is not part of the, there's certain stipulations in the Bible. And I feel that we um as a church I mean structural Yeah. I think Okay. It's getting to the point where as it's almost like we're Tie in hand, commit an adultery.

Mm-hmm. Um with somebody who kicked God out of the system. I mean, I'm not saying all of the courts Sistum button. The way it's Going. We can't even tie hands.

I think marriage has to be. defined like Bible charity. Um is a little bit more elevated than um low. because it has got I mean more or less it's God's love on the other side. Charity that i in the King James is just the normal word for love that's used.

But yeah, let me let me reiterate what you've said. And I've said this for many, many years, that No fault divorce in the church has done more to undermine marriage than all gay activists combined. This is part of the destruction of marriage. And then, with that, we then have the redefining of marriage. And of course, the slippery slope continues without question.

So, Yvonne, an important point. We have to get our own house in order for sure. 866-34Truth. Let's go to Villa Park, California. Dr.

Green, welcome to the line of fire. Hello, thank you. I will try to be concise.

So um the guest said that slippery slope does not equal change. But that's just really that's just semantics because slippery slope is just a change. It may sound like, oh my gosh, it's a runaway. Can't control it, but it is change. And we don't legislate change in that way.

Our laws are about specific things. I have occasion to. expert witness in court and assist legislative bodies. They don't want to hear from me about generality or broad sweeping opinion. They want to hear about specific stuff because that's how our laws are written.

So, to say that your statement, because he took issue with you saying. That it's inevitable, or he put that into the conversation.

Well you know change is also to a certain degree ambiguous in that we don't know what's going to happen. And so what is inevitable is we don't know what's going to happen because the mores of tomorrow are beyond our knowing. And so, to argue on the basis of we need a legal system that accommodates change. We might as not well not have a legal system because it means we let anything go. Yeah, sir, what you're saying is now coming at that from the legal angle.

And the point I was making was that my guest said there is no logical slippery slope, but then basically said, hey, we have to accommodate change and change is coming, etc.

So again, to me, it sounded like he was proving my point, simply saying the slippery slope is not bad. Slippery slope is good. Look, the fact is, you have to have guidelines. You have to have landmarks. You have to have boundaries in place that have some sanctity to them, some authority to them.

Otherwise, hey, every generation coming up doesn't like the laws. And then, you know, you have one view of the law when you're 10, another when you're 20, another when you're 30, another when you're 60.

So it has to have that fixed nature. And then if society can demonstrate that there are compelling legal reasons to bring about change, that's one thing. But that's not going to happen with something as fundamental as the definition of marriage. Out massive overhaul. What's your own area of specialization, sir?

Healthcare, medical. But here's one last shot on that too is and you correct me because I know your expertise is deeper. And is not the root of El Shaddai, Delat Ud Ein is that does that word not mean foundation, limit? You know, God sets limits. He tells the sea how high it can go.

He sets boundaries on what is, what is. He sets boundaries on reality. Yeah, I wouldn't trace that actually back to the Hebrew words, but without question, he makes it clear that he fixes boundaries. Let's just say that in the overall revelation of God in Scripture, that's a major part of what he does. And then he warns in the prophets, don't Don't move the ancient landmarks.

And that God has established fixed things. And I appreciate you raising that point. Just like they're fixed laws of nature. There are fixed laws of morality and fixed laws of reaping and sowing. And we mess with those to our own peril.

Thank you for calling. I appreciate it. 866-34TRUTH. Let's go to Jason in Charlotte, North Carolina. Welcome to the line of fire.

Thank you. I definitely agree with you. And in my heart, just the slippery slope concept that the phrase health of the mother has led to about sixty million of dead babies.

So You know, the question is: how do we govern a society? You know, Jesus said this was. Moses allowed this, but it was not so from from um from the beginning. And, you know, our founding fathers said that our form of government and our constitution is only for immoral people. At the same time, I struggle being a Christian libertarian, like where that line is because we are a republic, not a democracy.

So we protect the individual. And at the same time, I married my wife in my church, so I don't need the government to come in there and give me a stamp of approval.

So I do have these questions about not having really, you know, I believe in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And if you take that away from somebody, you should be charged with a crime. Therefore, abortion is wrong because you have a victim, you have a dead baby.

However, if Gay people want to get a certificate from their organization. I don't know that I have a problem with that. But then you get into polygamy and children are involved because I don't think children should be involved in an adult decision.

So that's where it's a slippery slope because you have children and then they can't make an adult decision. That's why it's illegal for certain things, for children to drink alcohol and other things. Exactly, or drive a car, or even be in the military, or vote. Yeah.

So when it comes to, say, a woman, a woman has the right. Over her own body. Yeah, but she doesn't have the right over the life, another life that's within her body any more than if she's holding a two-year-old in her arms and that two-year-old is obnoxious, that she has the right to throw it down and beat it.

So we understand that. And the same thing, if we would not be having this discussion today if the only issue was, say, two men who say they love each other and want to make a commitment, go to a local gay church and get blessing.

Well, I disagree with it, but that's between them and God, and they'll answer to God for it. When they want society to recognize it, Or when they want the legal right to bring children into that arrangement and guarantee that that child says, Well, we'll not have a mother because being raised by two fathers, that's when we take issue.

So there is a lot of liberty in our society. It's when you change the laws and make everyone else recognize that that major problems arise. Hey, thank you for weighing in. By the way, how our guest became an atheist, I don't know his own journey, but you can look it up by looking up Justin Schieber. It is spelled S-C-H-I-E-B-E-R.

Friends, if you appreciate what we're doing on the line of fire, join our support team. Become a torchbearer. Your monthly help will enable us to do this and far, far more. Be sure to check out my latest articles and videos at thelineoffire.org. My bottom line, very simple: once you redefine marriage, you render it meaningless.

I'm about to sit with two pastors, a white pastor and a black pastor, who have merged their congregations together as one. Um It's time for the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Michael Brown is the director of the Coalition of Conscience and president of Fire School of Ministry. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34-TRUTH.

That's 866-34 Truth. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I'm looking at two chairs and two microphones. And no one's sitting in those two chairs right now.

This is Michael Brown, your host on the Line of Fire broadcast, serving as your voice of moral sanity and spiritual clarity. The bottom line is that my guests are not yet in the studio. I'm eager to speak with them, and as soon as they sit down with me, we will bring them on for each of. Yeah.

Ah, all right. We have a volunteer, JJ. You can serve as the white pastor, Howard. How would you like to serve? Excuse me, J.J.

is the black pastor. That would be God. All right.

J.D. as the black pastor. Howard is the white pastor. And you could take the place of our guest. All right, tell you what, if they don't make it in, we will substitute a few others in their behalf.

No, we're just messing around here. But yeah, we do have a diverse staff as far as Jew, Gentile, black, white, male, female.

Okay. I wrote an article. It's a lengthy article. You can read it on the stream, stream.org. It's my response to Professor Susan Shaw.

She is professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at Oregon State University. She wrote an article February 11th, Huffington Post, pretty long article. My response is even longer. Dear white Christian Trump supporters, we need to talk.

So I addressed her on the air yesterday. I've tweeted her and had my staff reach out to her. We still haven't heard back from her. And now I wrote a full-length response as someone who had issues with Donald Trump in the primaries, opposed him, ultimately voted for him, but with reservation. I support him as our president.

I think he could do a great job in many ways, but I see his many evident flaws. But I responded to her questions, and I'm hoping. I'm hoping that in fact she will have dialogue with me. She says she wants to. She writes this.

She says, my white no, hang on, hang on, let me back up. She said, I don't think I know how to understand you at all. We need to talk and I don't know how to talk to you anymore.

So I said, great. Let's talk. Let me answer your questions. Let me explain things in terms of my background and my viewpoints. Let me tell you why I believe what I believe, why we believe what we believe, why I take exception to things that she's written.

And you can read that again at stream.org. It's getting a lot of good response. It's lengthy, but people are reading it and seem to appreciate it. And hopefully, on some level, We can model. On some level, we can model for you.

how to have dialogue with those you differ with.

Now, please understand me, I don't mean anything condescending as if no one out there knows how to have dialogue aside from me. No, no, no, no, no, no, of course not, of course not. But my point is that many times we don't know how to talk across the aisle to one another. Many times in the midst of our differences, we just get further apart. And that can happen.

I did a debate in the first hour with an atheist who was arguing that if you redefine marriages, there's no necessary slippery slope with it. And I would say by the end of the broadcast, we were further apart than we were. Or let's just say our differences were more clearly and deeply articulated afterwards than they were at the beginning. But many times we know how to argue. We know how to say, well, you're wrong.

Well I'm right. But we don't know how to dialogue. We don't know how to learn from those we differ with. We don't know how to bridge the gap or to present our viewpoint in a way that hopefully people on the other side will understand.

So I've sought to do that in this article. I think you'll find it very informative in any case. And you can use it as a resource because you probably have a friend or family member who's asking you the same question.

So that's up at stream.org. We will be right back. Angel World. Give us strict to always do what's right. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr.

Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. All right, my guests have arrived, actually right on time. They were down for coming in a few minutes into the broadcast.

So those empty chairs are now filled. And I am, I'm probably one of the more discerning people you'll ever meet. And it took me about 30 seconds, but I've identified the white pastor and the black pastor here, so we've worked that out.

Okay. Jay Stewart, we've known each other for a good number of years.

Now I've had the joy of speaking at your church, The Refuge.

So Jay's the founding pastor of The Refuge full-time vocational ministry over 25 years. And you and your wife, Melanie, have four kids, Haley, Clay, Cole, and Caden. And a grandson. And a grandson. Wow.

It's not here on the printed bio. Old bio.

Sorry. All right.

Old bio.

So over 25 years is what, like over 75 years? Over 32 years. Over 32 years. All right.

And first time I'm meeting Pastor Derek Hawkins. And, you know, I see lots of bios, but I like the way yours starts. Pastor Derek loves Jesus. Come on. That should be on every one of ours.

So you're serving now as Greensboro Campus Pastor of the Refuge.

So we'll explain that in a minute. Yes, sir. Proud husband of Roshonda Hawkins, unless you've added a bunch of kids since then. Father of Derek Jr., who's with the Lord, Renette, Deshaun, Labrika, Darian, and Jalen. And your great heart is for Revival in America.

No grandkids yet? No, sir.

Okay, so we're up to date. Up to date on that. Derek, tell me what you were doing before joining together with the refuge. Wow, listen, I was the executive pastor of a church called the House of Refuge Deliverance Ministries in Greensboro, North Carolina, under the leadership of Bishop William and Pastor Darling Allen. And I had met Pastor Jay just on a random assignment, going to take my daughter to get her hair done.

Didn't want to do it, one of those fatherly duties that our husbands get called to do. And I seen this great big sign that said The Refuge. I'm like, okay.

Now, how far away? Greensboro from Salisbury. It's actually about 50 minutes.

Okay. And I stay in Salisbury, North Carolina. I've stayed in Salisbury my whole life. And for five years, I don't know how I missed this sign that said The Refuge, Salisbury. And just one day I seen it, and I called the number.

It led me to the main campus. They were actually remodeling the campus.

Well, renovating it, getting ready to move into a brand new campus. I met a guy, led me to Pastor Jay, invited me to a service. And man, I've been hooked like glue since, man. And how many folks were in your congregation? About 100.

150 to 200 people. And largely black? Yes, mostly African American. Right. And would that be the community there is largely African American?

Yes, sir. Got it. All right.

So, Jay, on your end, obviously you are a bridge builder. Your website is one of the few I've seen where you talk about your church and give a vision. And then you say, but this church may not be for you. Here are other churches in the community that we recommend, which is quite different than the norm.

So you have good relations with lots of pastors' churches. What happens with a merge? How does that come about? Long story short, Pastor Derek approached me on a Sunday back in 2014 and introduced himself and just said, I want to meet with you. I need someone to mentor me and coach me.

I've been tapped for the assignment of taking over the church. I'm the executive pastor. And they're going to pass the baton to me. Would you be willing to do that? I said, I'd love to meet with you.

We sat down and met. Immediately, my heart was stirred for him. And we just began meeting on a regular basis. And I just had the great joy of just pouring into him and mentoring him and coaching him. He brought the founding pastors into one of those settings.

There was an immediate connection in the spirit realm where we just had great unity together. But again, it was just for mentoring and coaching. And so they asked me, the founding pastor said, would you coach us? And would you help us prepare for a healthy transition as we pass to one of our spiritual sons, the leadership of the church? I said, absolutely.

Absolutely.

So they would come on a monthly basis. They would bring leaders. There would be 10 or 12 people sitting in my office. And this beautiful relationship began to develop between all of us. But nobody was looking for anything except, hey, let's build the kingdom.

Let's just, you know, and so that's what was taking place for at least a year. And then all of that changed in November of twenty fifteen. When in one of those settings I felt very prompted by the Holy Spirit to ask them if they had ever had conversations about becoming a campus of the refuge. And I was hesitant. I wrestled with the Lord for 10 or 15 minutes because I never wanted them to think that I had an agenda.

And I had no agenda except to help them. But I knew the Holy Spirit was leading me to do that. I asked the question. They all started laughing. And they said, we have conversations about it all the time.

Wow. So that led to further discussions, prayer. You know, is this a God thing, or is just this? Is this just a good thing? It became evident it was a God thing.

I said I want to make sure that Derek It takes assumes leadership there before we do this merger. Let's establish him. I preached his installation back in the summer of 2016. And then we announced a date for the merger that it would all become official November the 6th. I would announce it to the church.

He would announce it in Greensboro. Our Salisbury campus pastor would announce it on September the 22nd. All right, so the merger. What does the merger look like, Pastor Derek?

Well, one of the first questions Pastor Jay asked me, and Bishop and Pastor Allen: do you want a date or do you want to be married? And so it was one of the hardest questions that I'd ever had, you know, outside of my wife and I dated. And so we just really consulted it to prayer, just took it to prayer and said, hey, what does this look like?

So now it looks like I came on staff with the refuge on November the 1st, 2016, and I submit to the leadership of Pastor Jay. I've been submitting to the leadership of Pastor Jay for over two years. I'd already considered him to be a mentor and a spiritual father to me.

So if he asked me to take off work to be at one of the staff meetings, I was there. Anything that he asked me to do.

So I assumed the position before I ever had anything about coming on staff. And so I just came on staff. We merged. We took on the DNA of the refuge. We always talk about the heart, having the heart and the vision for the kingdom and just expanding the kingdom.

Pastor Jay has this saying that, hey, we don't want to build a castle, we want to build the kingdom. And so that's what we want to do here. And we've just been submitting to the leadership of Pastor Jay. And just how that looks, it's been. Challenges, ups and downs, you know, as far as just meshing our congregations together through worship.

So we've, you know, changed some things as far as what it looks like. We took on some of the identity of the refuge, children's church ministry, deacons and elders, just establishing some things that we already had in order, but just making sure that it was congruent to what was going on at the refuge's main campus. And the congregation you merged with was largely white. Yes.

Okay, and about how many people? Um, I think it's about, what, twenty one hundred, I think. Yeah, in terms of merging, in terms of being one large Group together.

So, has this affected the demographics, Derek, of your congregation itself? Not just structure, but has it affected the demographics at all? It has. It has greatly impacted our demographic and what we're getting in our church. We are becoming multicultural, multi-ethnic.

Every week, people are coming into our campus, and we're so grateful for it. We would have never had a vision. It's something that I always say that I could have never dreamed this for my own life. You know, God had a plan for my life that was so much bigger than me. And I'm just so grateful for the leadership of Pastor Jay to even open up that destiny, a part of me that I didn't even know that was there.

Got it. All right.

So, Jay, this official transition takes place when? November the 6th, but the announcement was made on September 27th. Oh, okay, right. And so this is right in the heat of the election season, right? This is before the election season, but there's another right, okay.

And there's almost nothing as divisive about that. I have friends of mine that are multicultural pastors, and we know white evangelicals normally vote Republican, black evangelicals normally vote Democrat, you know, and we would have been like, you voted for Obama, you didn't vote for Obama. It's like, you know, how and but this time, even though you didn't have white and black, you had this massively intensified with the differences between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and where that landed.

So, how do you get through things like that? The kingdom values transcend culture, but there's a lot of cultural clash in the midst of things.

So, weigh in, we'll continue this discussion, but how do you pass your way through those things?

Well, you know, one of the things we wanted to do, because, you know, if you want to pick a fight with somebody, talk politics. One of the things we wanted to do was to continue to point people back to. The Word of God. What is the standard of the Word of God? What does the Bible say about this?

We're not voting Republican or Democrat. We're voting the standards of the Word of God.

So we just kept, you know, in every congregation trying to point people back to that. All right.

Now, I mean, of course, the way it gets applied still comes out differently through different eyes.

So, Derek, if you have conversations within the congregation, because they are going to come up. Absolutely.

How do you pass that? We've just got a minute for this now, but how do you deal with it? Listen, he preached United Lee at all campuses. We preached a message called What Now? And we, Pastor Jay and myself, and Pastor Billy, we've always been very, very open about the issues that face our community.

But we go back to the standard, but we still had to navigate through, hey, this tension because we do have Democratic people in our congregation. We didn't shy away from that. We've always been open in the conversation. It's not a black and white thing. We always talk about the Jesus and the blood.

But at the end of the day, it is black and white when you talk about different demographics and dynamics of each community. But we just talked about it. We were honest about it. Hey, we preached a message that was very simple, very profound. At the same time, we just wanted to make people feel comfortable.

About having a conversation.

So we just never avoided conversation. I want to throw out a thesis. When we come back, you can both respond. As I've looked at this and discussed all the tough hot button issues on the radio for years now. My perception is that white Americans often do not see racism when it isn't there.

Excuse me. White Americans often do not see racism when it is there. Black Americans often see racism when it isn't there. And these are blind spots we have.

So I'll get your take on that when we come back. God of light, hear our cry, send the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown, your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. All right, I'm sitting with Pastors Jay Stewart and Derek Hawkins, part of a Congregational merge to form a single church, Jay Stewart being a white American. Derek Hawkins being a black American. Before the break, I said that a thesis I had developed, just trying to boil things down after months and months of dialogue and interaction, was that white Americans often do not see racism when it Is there. Black Americans often see racism when it isn't there.

And again, this is from our perspective, upbringing background. For example, I've never been racially profiled. I can't relate to certain things, but many of my callers explain background and things like that. But then that could also explain blind spot on each side.

So you can tell me this is the most brilliant thesis you ever heard and simplifies in a few words what others have not been able to simplify in books. You could tell me you think it's idiotic.

So you're totally free to respond. But Derek, we'll start with you. Listen, I think that's a brilliant. brilliant thing, growing up in the African American community. Listen, racial profiling is a real issue in America.

I'm going to share with Pastor Jay, I drive, you know. Fairly decent car. And I've been to Concord, Kannapolis area probably 20, 30 times. I've probably been racially profiled in the last two months, three or four times. You're serious?

Serious. I mean, I believe you, but that's still serious. It's so mind-boggling. There's a real issue, and I think that that's why we wanted to have a conversation. We've never shied away from that there is an issue in America.

We preach messages on the issue with racial disunity in America.

So we know that there's a real perspective change that needs to happen in the community. But listen, I think it just becomes with years of what African Americans have felt through oppression, that there are certain things that just by norm, it's just in our nature. Make the assumption. Yeah, you just make the assumption, even if it's not there. When you see, you know, about jobs or just confinement and the prison systems and just different things that you're talking about.

Disproportionate issues. Right. So you make the assumption. You've seen the reality, but you can then see it when it's not there. Absolutely.

And I think that that's what's been so unique about this unity: even though those issues are there, we look past it and just see the, you know, we see the blood. Jesus, and we just see what God is trying to do in the earth realm and how God is bringing and merging the churches together.

So, this makes this situation very unique, especially with the racial tension in America the way it is today. Yeah, and we want to talk about the prophetic timing, the significance of all this in a moment. An article I'm looking at. Announced things back in January about the merge because of things that happened last year. But, Jay, your take as to my thesis.

Yeah, I think you're spot on with your thesis. I agree 100%. I was raised in the deep south in Georgia in the 60s and 70s. I remember September of 1972, where myself, millions of other children were introduced to forced integration. When I got on a school bus and was bused miles across town instead of walking four blocks to a school that was just down the street from my house.

So I'm familiar with all of that. And I believe that, you know, there is just like some of my kids have selective hearing. I believe there's selective vision as well. Yeah.

And that's what God dealt with with Paul. Paul was a very religious man, but he had selective vision, and scales fell off of his eyes when he encountered the Lord. And I think we need to be open to the Holy Spirit. And that's what we've done in this relationship. We've invited the Holy Spirit in.

We've been very open and said, we're not going to ignore the fact that there are challenges and differences, but we believe those can be overcome through the blood of Jesus. And we believe there can be a commanded blessing, like Psalm 133 talks about, you know, that flows down Aaron's robe and down his beard. And when brothers dwell together in unity, so we're just committed to doing that, saying, you know, there's differences for sure, there's challenges, and there are white people who don't see the race. When it is there, there are black people that see racism when it's not there. But we're going to have conversations.

We're going to work together through the realm of the Spirit until we achieve what is real Holy Spirit-created unity. We can't create unity. The Bible never tells us to create unity. We don't have that ability. The Bible tells us to protect the unity that is created by the Holy Spirit.

What we have the opportunity to do is to work in partnership with the Holy Spirit. Got it. All right, so before we talk about some of the significant dates and these events here, let me go in this direction. I'll play the devil's advocate here. When you go to the food court at the mall, It's one food court.

But you can get the Mexican food or Chinese food, or you can get Italian food, or you can get typical American fare or whatever. They don't put everything in a blender and slop it all together, right? Because each food is distinct and unique.

So why not just let things be? I mean, you've got a congregation that's a Korean congregation, you've got an African-American congregation, you've got a mainly white, just let it be. And why try to mix like worship songs or overcome these things? Just let each group be in its own.

So we're unified in that we're one big church, but we each have our little part in the food cart in the mall. Why not that philosophy? Dr. Brown, it's funny, and I'll allude to this and Pastor Jay can see this as well. It's funny.

My niece was born yesterday, and she's mixed. Oh, really? She is. And so if I say just let it be. Then How is she represented if we can't come together and worship together?

If we can't come together and eat the same thing, it doesn't matter that you know we like different things or there's different food courts. But hey, is it okay to bring every dish to the table and just sit down and eat? I believe it's so. I believe that's what the Lord wants to see. I believe that that's what the Holy Spirit wants to create in creating unity.

And like Pastor Jay talks about, is protecting that unity. I believe in just bringing everything together. Hey, I have some people, I'm pretty sure you have some people in your family that can't really cook that well, but listen, we still eat the food when they bring it to the table.

So I believe it's the same thing. It doesn't matter that, you know, hey, this culture brings this or that culture brings that. We just want to come together and glorify God. And I believe that this is a great depiction of what heaven is going to look like, you know, later on, man. I just really believe that.

Do you feel that each group represented young, old, male, female, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, whatever, that each one is enriched by interaction with the other? I do. I believe it's certain things that I have. Grasp from being around Pastor Jay that I would have never got in my culture. I just totally have learned so much just about it.

Economically, it's building a church, just having that. In the African-American community of churches, you have few spiritual fathers that are willing to sit down and impart the wisdom that I've gotten since I've been in a relationship with Pastor Jay Stewart. And so, those are a lot of things that we see in the community. Everything is kind of fast-paced. It is more divisive because of the things that we faced coming up.

And so, people are more so just like crabs in a bucket almost trying to fight their way out, trying to crawl their way out.

So, just being able to be around the refuge and just be imparted, just be led by the Holy Spirit, and having somebody to take the time for you to build the things that's on the inside of you has been instrumental in my development as a pastor and as a father. And, Jay, just got one minute, but have you been enriched by multicultural interaction? Absolutely, no doubt about it, Dr. Brown. And what Pastor Derek is saying is such a beautiful picture of heaven.

I believe it's a picture of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. Where we don't have to deny our Uniqueness, our differences as far as Asians, Hispanic, white, black, whatever. But we all have something that we can bring to the table, and we're all going to be better for it. I'm a much better man because of this man and because of Pastor Allen and Bishop Allen and the congregation now that's a part of the refuge there in Greensboro and others throughout my lifetime, 54 years of living that have helped shape who I am, given me a greater understanding of the fullness of who Christ is. Yeah, absolutely.

All right, friends, we come back. There's something very significant about the timing of the announcement that these two churches were going to merge together and become one. Headline news I'm looking at January 5th, 2017. Black and white congregations merge to form a single church. We'll be right back.

It's the line of fire with your host, activist, author, international speaker, and theologian Dr. Michael Brown. Your voice of moral, cultural, and spiritual revolution. Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr.

Michael Brown. Thanks so much for joining us today on the line of fire. I'm sitting in studio with two pastors, Pastor Jay Stewart and Pastor Derek Hawkins. And they have merged together to form a single congregation in Greensboro, North Carolina. And refuge was a common word that there was part of the name of the congregation Pastor Derek led, and then the congregation Pastor Jay led, a refuge church.

And Pastor Jay became a mentor to Pastor Derek, and then God spoke, hey, you're not dating. You're going to marry. And there has been a merge together in Greensboro, and now an influx to what was mainly an African-American church, more multicultural with the challenges and benefits and blessings that that brings. But something happened in terms of the timing of this that got attention because churches do merge. And even multicultural merger is not as common, but these things do happen.

Often if you'll have multicultural unions, the same building is used by different congregations, and you've got this service in Korean and this in Chinese and this in Spanish. But this is different. But Jay, what happened in terms of the timing of this that made this so significant?

So the announcement was made about this coming merger. On September the 22nd of 2016, less than 48 hours later, Charlotte, the city of Charlotte, which we're in a bedroom community of Charlotte, the city unraveled over the shooting of an African-American man by a police officer, Charlotte police officer. Riots broke out. There was looting. There was violence in the city.

I'm watching Fox News, you know, different news sources. Can't believe this is happening in our backyard. And I remember saying, it was late at night, I said, God, you are writing a better story. You're writing a better narrative, and we need for the story to be told. And all of a sudden, the next day, the story hits the national news of the merger.

And it was obvious at that point that for whatever reason, Like you said, Dr. Brown, mergers have happened, people have come together, but God wanted to spotlight this in the light with the backdrop of what was going on. And then, of course, a couple of months later, the tensions continued to grow in our nation with the election and the volatility of that. And then, you know, now we're in a nation that's maybe more divided than what we've seen in a long time. Yeah, and I'm looking at articles that are saying that there is a growing resegregating of cities across America.

And for whatever reason, we're not going to point fingers here, but certainly it seems after eight years of having our first African-American president that racial tensions have grown. Yes.

For whatever reason, that's a whole other discussion.

So, Pastor Derek, we've got a minute and a half before the break here. Obviously, when these things happen, where there's a black man that's shot, in this case it was by a black policeman, but when this happens, old wounds are opened up immediately. Did you find that you were able to help white Christians better understand some of the pain that African Americans have lived with? I think this merger has done that. I think it has helped us to just be so careful because, you know, both people are wounded.

In this situation, African Americans have been wounded, deeply wounded by things that have happened. But you can't just take that and not show compassion for what other people have been through as well. And I just wanted to always be truthful, you know, and just really have dialogue and have a conversation about what we feel. And hey, how can we work on this together to heal together? You know, I think one thing about a marriage we heard at a marriage conference is that both people are designed to heal each other.

And I believe that this is what God is doing, even with this merger: that we have to heal each other. Marriage is designed to heal each other, and that's what we're doing. If we're really going to be married, we have to take the good, the bad, and the ugly from both. Bring it together and say, hey, let's put it on the table. Let's talk about it.

You know, what you felt and how you felt. Pastor Jay has been very, very open with allowing me to feel and say how I feel and still be respectful about the process of how we need to heal together. Excellent. Excellent. Yeah.

So the. The fact that you say we've got to have the dialogue, we've got to have the conversation. I get to do it as a radio host and people call in, it's enlightened me, it's helped me and it's gone back and forth. But then there's the relationship, there's trust that's earned. And once you've proven to someone that you're willing to listen, then you can go back and forth.

We've got to earn that trust. All right.

Interesting prophetic perspective. We come back. Oh God of burning, cleansing flame Say And the fire. It's the line of fire with your host, Dr. Michael Brown.

Get into the line of fire now by calling 866-34TRUTH. Here again is Dr. Michael Brown. I am having a joyful time sitting with Pastor Jay Stewart, who I've known for years now, a dear brother, fine pastor, and a Brother, I've just gotten to know, but I feel like I know you well, man. Pastor Derek Hawkins, they have done a church merge, so largely African-American congregation merging with a white congregation.

And this took place the end of last year. And, Jay, You were explaining to me during the break something that you felt was a prophetic significance. And you know, we can overdo things and find meaning in every day, every minute, and second that goes by, but there are things that get our attention. This is one of them. What happened?

Well, back in 1960, it's February the 1st, so it was exactly 57 years ago this month. Four young African-American students from NCAT walked into a Woolworths. Department store, which had lunch counters and and places where you could order food, about three o'clock that afternoon, and they sat down at the white-only counter. As a peaceful, silent protest. The next day, about 12 people showed up and sat down with them.

The following day, about 30 people. The next day after that, 60 people. It continued to grow day after day, peaceful protest, and it began to spread around the country.

Now, I think it's interesting and significant that now here we are on the Jewish calendar, it's the year 5777.

So we're 57 years later. When God has brought national attention to this merger that's taking place between a church on the outskirts of Charlotte and a church in Greensboro, North Carolina, as a picture of unity. In the nation, unity in the body of Christ. All right, so we look back at civil rights. When I teach a class on Jesus Revolution and changing society, we show a video that talks about the desegregation of lunch counters in Nashville.

Very similar. It's tremendously powerful footage hearing the philosophy things behind this. And obviously, we still see though the famous quote from Dr. King about churches being the most segregated parts of America. Yeah, exactly.

All right.

So, most churches are not going to be called to do the merge like you have done on this level. But certainly, we're called to be one. Absolutely.

And we certainly need each other.

So, let's just talk believers across ethnic, racial, backgrounds, especially when there's tension in society. Right now there's a lot of ethnic racial tension with the elections, for so many reasons. Your pastor's in the same community. Everybody's busy. But let's start with you, Pastor Derek.

What give us some suggestions? You talked about in the last segment how we heal each other, in that sense, how we need each other.

So, what do we do? How can we grow in unity without? I'm not trying to be talk a certain way and look a certain way, put something on. You know, you're not trying to change who you are, but we're trying to learn from each other. Absolutely.

We're trying to become sensitive to each other. What are some practical steps?

Well, listen, we just did something this past Sunday, a series called Undivided. It was a pastor's out in Cincinnati, Ohio. The pastor Billy Rollins ran across some information. And what we did in the city of Salisbury, North Carolina, there has been 17 unsolved murders since 2010, and most of them are African-American. But we have strong racial divide in Salisbury, Salisbury.

It was really big for the KKK movement. Um 70s, 60s. Really? Yes, sir. So, a very, very intricate part of that.

So, we felt led, and Pastor Billy Rollins and Pastor Jay Stewart felt led to call a group of pastors together. I believe we always talk about conversation, but not just conversation. Undivided is an action statement. It is a statement decreeing and declaring, you know, against the authorities and principalities that rule in our cities and our communities that we were going to come together and we were going to go before the courts of heaven. And we were just going to, you know, just come against some strongholds that were in the community.

One of them, racial unity, and then the unsolved murders.

So, we had pastors from every ethnicity, cultural divides come together, had some pastors to pray. And for the next five weeks, we're going to get together and we're going to meet. The last meeting is going to be in the homes of African Americans and Caucasians are going to come together. Different races and ethnicities are going to come together. We're going to eat at each other's houses, but we're going to have dialect.

We have NAACP representatives, the mayor of the city of Salisbury is going to be there. They still has been a part.

So, we're not just talking about merging, we're taking action statements.

So, those are the type things that we want to do to that's incredible. I bet you're going to see breakthroughs, too. I bet you're going to see some of these things solved as well. I bet you're going to see that. Pastor Jay?

Well, I believe what happened Sunday night that Pastor Derek's referring to was very significant. I think it was hugely significant, not only for the city of Salisbury, but for the surrounding communities there with the unsolved murders. And again, unity doesn't take place over just having conversations, although that's very important. I think action also has to follow the conversations. We can talk about unity all day long, but until we do something about it and coming together, nothing's going to really change.

And so that was an example of people not just talking about unity. Oh, yeah, let's get together. I think that's important. We've got all these unsolved murders in Salisbury, which is where our first campus, our satellite campus, is located. But let's actually do something.