The Real Root of Reza Aslan's Worldview and book, Zealot

This interview of Reza Aslan by Jennifer Danielle Crumpton reveals the real underlying worldview and presuppositions of Reza and his book, Zealot.  Jennifer Crumpton got her M. Div. from Union Theological Seminary, no surprise there, and is ordained in the "Christian Church" (Disciples of Christ) denomination.   Jennifer is a Pastoral Associate of Park Avenue Christian Church in Manhattan, New York.  This is one of the most liberal of all mainline churches; along with the United Church of Christ and affiliated denominations.  (Hard to say which one is the most liberal.)

She also says she is a blogger and minister to young people, Gen-Xers and Millennials, etc. a "Femmevangelical" (her web-site), and most of what she writes seems to be similar to other post-moderns and Emergent/Emerging church thinking.  She writes for the Huffington Post and other liberal leaning blogs.   If you look further at her web-site and videos on You Tube, it is obviously she is against the complimentarian position of women's roles in the Bible and church and family, and very negative against Patriarchal society in the Bible.  Unfortunately, the past sins of some men against women are being imputed to God and the Bible itself. (Nothing new there either.)

The scholars who have criticized Reza Aslan's book, Zealot, have focused on the fact that his theory that Jesus was a revolutionary against Rome is not new, but not many of them talk about the roots of his worldview in the book, and the separation of "the Jesus of history" vs. "the Christ of Faith".

A roundup of significant reviews of Zealot:

John Dickson - this one seems to me to be the most devastating to Aslan.  (per Denny Burk's blog)
seems like Denny Burk's blog is being hacked, or having problems sometimes, so below is the direct link:

John Dickson

Justin Taylor at The Gospel Coalition. 

Darrell Bock.

Craig Evans.  (Per Denny Burk again) 

Larry Hurtado  (by way of Ben Witherington III) 

Calvinist International 

The Economist

The Weekly Standard. 

Warning - this link shows Reza Aslan's frequent cursing, dirty language, and bullying on twitter and media outlets, with anyone whom he doesn't agree with. (on the second page)

Aslan is classic liberalism that has come back with a vengence in our society through the Emerging/Emergent church movement and their spokespeople like Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, and Rachel Held Evans.

It is the same classic Rudolph Bultmann type stuff I heard in the liberal United Methodist Church that I grew up, in the 1960s and 1970s.   But the ministers never admitted it until the Lord saved me in 1977 as a teenager, and then, later, in 79-81, when I went and asked them specific questions, I learned where they were coming from.  

The biggest problem is that in sound bite media and Reza Aslan's interviews (like on PBS programs and the Daily Show and Huffington Post type blog/video interviews, and this one above; is his views are "baptized" in the general idea that "The Jesus of History" is separate from "The Christ of Faith", and that seems to be overall worldview of most liberal and modern scholars today - John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, Bart Ehrman, etc. - they don't allow truth of theology and miracles to be brought into history or historical research. Doubt and skepticism toward the gospels and Bible are the takeaway message in our sound-bite culture.

Most people seeing these things (interviews, media videos and blogs) don't care about Reimarus or S. G. F. Brandon, (Though it is good for thoughtful readers to know about that and that those theories have already been dealt with in earlier times); but what dumbs everything down and the basic message that gets spread, is that Jesus existed and was crucified, but beyond that, we cannot trust anything else, because it is suppossedly out of the realm of the canons of historical research to allow miracles or theology into it.

I am still reading the book Zealot, I have probably read 3/4 of it; but to be honest, it is boring!!  Liberalism is boring to me; and before I cull together specific quotes and specific problems, I thought I would give an overview of the basic worldview first.

See also my earlier post about "Understanding John Dominic Crossan". 

Understanding John Dominic Crossan

I am still working through Reza Aslan's book, Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.  When I finish it, I hope to write some blog articles and comments on the substance of the book.   The ghosts of classic liberals like Reimarus, Adolph Von Harnack, Rudolph Bultmann, F. C. Bauer, Walter Bauer and modern "Jesus Seminar" type liberals like John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, the late Robert Funk, Raymond Brown, and John P. Meier,  James Tabor, and Geza Vermes are all through his book; and the end-notes/works cited/bibliography are full of this stuff. In that sense, Aslan's book is nothing new; and will probably be a "flash in the pan". But many younger people, bloggers, skeptics, and atheists today are reading this book.   It it interesting for me, because Aslan has become a famous western Iranian, and just knowing his material is helpful in my ministry with Iranians.  Therefore, I wanted to read Zealot, as I had also already started his other book, No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam.  I got it in English and Farsi to improve my language skills.

A lot of Aslan's experiences and thinking are typical for westernized Iranians that fled the Iranian Islamic Revolution, lead by the Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.  Aslan was 7 when his family fled the Iranian Revolution; and he says that his family was very nominal Muslims and enthusiastic atheists.  He says his mom prayed when no one was looking, and maybe a Qur'an could be found in a drawer hidden away; and for the most part, his father tried really hard to scrub Islam and religion from his family.  Many Iranians go that route when they flee Iran and come to the west.  I have meet many Iranians like this here in the USA.

In order to get a grasp on what Aslan really means, one needs to understand John Dominic Crossan.

Dr. White debated Dr. Crossan on the Bible - this one is worth ordering here. Debate Title: "Is the Bible True?"  I love Dr. White's comment he has made several times over the years about J. D. Crossan, "He is the nicest heretic you will ever meet."  (something like that)


Dr. White and James Renihan also debated John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg:






William Lane Craig on John Dominic Crossan:  (this is a very good and I think WLC nailed this.  Similar to J. Greshem Machen calling out Liberalism as another religion and not Christian at all.) 





The book that WLC mentions, Will the Real Jesus Please Stand Up?  (A Debate between John Dominic Crossan and William Lane Craig; edited by Paul Copan)  I read this years ago; and it was good to pull it out and go through some of it again.


Here is a very interesting doctoral dissertation for Southern Seminary by Tawa J. Anderson on John Dominic Crossan's theology. I found this very helpful in getting a better overall handle on understanding John Dominic Crossan.  (the first couple of pages are blank, so scroll down to start reading it.)

God is in Control; Steady Your Heart in Him

"My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast."  Psalm 57:7

After listening to the silly arguments that Muslims Zakir Hossein and Sami Zaatari make, and the way they tried to argue their case in their recent debates [Sept. 17 and 19, 2012] with Dr. White (www.aomin.org), it was amazing at how they rely on western liberal scholarship, and then just deny and say "no" in the face of evidence. This was especially true with Sami Zaatari, who kept saying "It doesn't matter, because the Qur'an says so and so", etc.   His tone and demeanor reminded me of "Baghdad Bob" (Saddam Hussein's spokesperson when the USA invaded Iraq in 2003), who kept saying "No!; where are the soldiers?  They are not here."  Yet he was just denying reality.    Sami just seems to deny reality.  The way Muslims use liberal anti-supernatural scholarship and Gnostic gospels (Paul Bilal Williams, Shabir Ally, and many others) is truly amazing.

Also, Islam, as a political/social/militaristic force is seeking to overpower the west by many other Muslims and their seemingly faith in the political and military might of Islam, whether it be by "stealth Jihad" like CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood; or whether it will be when or if the Caliphate is restored, or other extremist Muslims who are not waiting for that and taking matters into their hands now; (Al Qaeda and other Jihadist/Salafi/Islam-ist types) - they seem to have methods of using whatever they need to in order to gain power.  That is why, it seems to me, that one Muslim recently even wrote an article noting the parallels of Islam to Neitzsche's philosophy of "the will to power".  (But they took down the article later.  It seems they are embarrassed to admit the obvious parallels.)

Without faith in the true God, the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, the God of love, it can be disturbing to see the way Muslim apologists use liberal western scholarship and freedom of speech to do their apologetics in the west, but at the same time, other Muslims use the political powers and general culture in their countries and deny the same opportunity for Christians to debate in their societies without persecution and Dhimmi-ism and honor killings.  (with a few exceptions in early Islamic history and in recent years in Dubai.  (the debates between Thabiti Anyabwile and Bassam Zawadi were especially good, in my opinion. One is here.  The other one here.)

It has been helpful for me to read and meditate in Psalms 46,  56-57, 86, and Romans 8 and James chapters 3-5 in light of some of the big issues going on the world today.

Steady your heart in God, in the face of the above and three other things, yea, even four:
A.  the sensationalism around the pro-Gnostic hype over "the Gospel of Jesus' Wife"
B.  The tension in the Middle East and Muslim countries.
C.  The upcoming Election in the USA for President.
D.  The ongoing homosexual/gay agenda that seeks to destroy marriage, decency and culture.



A.  At least 3 good articles that steady the situation of the recent Gnostic Gospel promotion of the mainstream media and liberal pro-Gnostic scholars like Karen King and Elaine Pagels.

1.  Simon Gathercole points out the parallels and similarities between the fragment that was named "the Gospel of Jesus' Wife" by pro-Gnostic scholar Karen King, and the Gospel of Thomas:  Interesting that he also points out that the fragment was named by King "the Gospel of Jesus' wife" for sensational effect and should not have even been named that.

http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/index.php?page=ReJesusWife

We believe this to be a largely reliable translation. But is it evidence that Jesus had a wife? The answer is an emphatic ‘no’. Not even Karen King is claiming that it is, though it’s inevitable that some of the news outlets will present it otherwise. What we have here is a typical sort of text which arose after Christianity had become very popular and when derivatives of Christianity began to emerge. The language of the text is very similar to the Gospel of Thomas, sayings 101 and 114, and the Gospel of Thomas saying 101 shows influence of Luke 14:26, as the Gospel of Thomas does elsewhere. This way of speaking belongs to the mid-second century or later, in other words generations later than the books of the New Testament. We asked Dr Simon Gathercole, an expert on apocryphal gospels and Senior Lecturer in New Testament in the University of Cambridge, for his comments. (See his analysis below).
The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife - This piece of papyrus has been authenticated by two reputable scholars, Profs. Roger Bagnall and AnneMarie Luijendijk. There are doubts, however, which have been raised about its authenticity, especially by scholars at the International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome, where there is a good deal of scepticism. This is a tiny fragment of text, but which has something unprecedented in it, namely a reference to Jesus addressing someone as “My wife....”: 1 ] not. My mother has given me [life] 2 ] The disciples said to Jesus, [ 3 ] deny. Mary is worthy of it [ 4 ] Jesus said to them, “My wife... [ 5 ] She will be able to be a disciple to me, and [ 6 ] Let evil man ??? [... 7 ] As for me, I am with her because [ ] an image [ Relation to other gospels - What is interesting about the relation of this fragment to other gospels is that it is closest to the Gospel of Thomas:
Line 1: Gos. Thom. 101.3:	My mother has given me [life]. My true Mother has given me life.
Line 3: Gos. Thom. 114.1:	Mary is worthy of it Simon Peter said to them, ‘Let Mary come out from us, because women are not worthy of life.’
Line 5: Gos. Thom. 101.1-2:	She will be able to be a disciple to me Whoever does not hate his father and his mother as I do cannot be a disciple to me. And whoever does not love his Father and his Mother as I do cannot be a disciple of mine.
There is obviously ongoing debate here about the role of Mary, and by extension. What is not paralleled elsewhere is that Jesus addresses someone – probably Mary Magdalene – as his wife. There are two possible implications of this: 1. This could be like the special relationship that Mary Magdalene and Jesus have in the Gospel of Philip. There, Mary is closer to Jesus than the other disciples are, as Mary Magdalene is an important symbol: the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene is an allegory of the soul’s meeting with God in the bridal chamber, i.e. salvation. 2. It could reflect debates about marriage and sex in the early church. Tertullian (c. 200, the time of this fragment), discussed marriage a lot, in particular re-marriage after death of a spouse (which he said was wrong), and his view of marriage was that the ideal marriage was without sex. Others at the time, like Clement of Alexandria, report opponents using Jesus’ celibacy as an argument for Christians remaining celibate. Some, he says, “say outright that marriage is fornication and teach that it was introduced by the devil. These arrogant  people say that they are imitating the Lord, who neither married nor possessed anything in this world, boasting that they understand the gospel better than others.” (Clement, Stromateis3.49.1).  The use of such a striking motif as Jesus being married obviously had a point to it: it may have been that Jesus’ marriage was invented as a reason to justify marriage. 3. It could be a text like the Gospel of Mary, where Mary has become an alternative channel of revelation. She is given a place very close to Jesus, so that she can be a mouthpiece for an alternative treatment of salvation. Other references to Jesus in similar relationships - Jesus has female disciples in the canonical gospels, who support his ministry (Luke 8), and who are part of his entourage generally. There is no reference to marriage of any kind, which is striking in a biography. (Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars, for example, mentions wives and fiancées of all 12 of his subjects.) Other apocryphal gospels develop some of these relationships. So, for example, Salome who is a very minor character in the gospels (mentioned only twice, only in Mark’s gospel), but she becomes significant in the Gospel of the Egyptians, and especially in the Gospel of Thomas, where she shares a couch with Jesus: it was a dining couch rather than a bed, but sharing a dining couch was still a louche thing to do, and effectively meant being married or lovers. The Gospel of Philip might refer to Jesus kissing Mary, but the manuscript has some holes in at the key point! In a later text called the Greater Questions of Mary, Jesus even – in front of Mary Magdalene - has sex with a woman whom he has produced out of his side. Harvard Professor Karen King, who is the person who has been entrusted with the text, has rightly warned us that this does not say anything about the historical Jesus. She is correct that “its possible date of composition in the second half of the second century, argues against its value as evidence for the life of the historical Jesus”. But she is also right that this is a fascinating discovery which offers us a window into debates about sex and marriage in the early church, and the way Jesus could be adapted to play a part in a particular debate. If it is genuine. Simon Gathercole

2.  Michael Kruger brings us back to the bottom line in this issue:

http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/tgc/2012/09/19/the-far-less-sensational-truth-about-jesus-wife/

"When it comes to these sorts of questions I like to remind my students of a simple---but often overlooked---fact: of all the gospels in early Christianity, only Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are dated to the first century.  Sure, there are minority attempts to put books like the Gospel of Thomas in the first century---but such attempts have not been well received by biblical scholars. Thus, if we really want to know what Jesus was like, our best bet is to rely on books that were at least written during the time period when eyewitnesses were still alive. And only four gospels meet that standard. "   Michael Kruger

3.  Al Mohler points out the sensationalism of this that masquerades as scholarship:
http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/09/20/the-gospel-of-jesuss-wife-when-sensationalism-masquerades-as-scholarship/

Even without these extra excellent articles, and information, we can calmly re-affirm with David, the inspired writer: 

"My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast."  Psalm 57:7

With all this extra reasonable apologetic defense of the Bible and the true God, our witness is emboldened in being equipped to answer the critics.

and,

B.  with all the turmoil in the Middle East and from radical Muslims who stir up many other Muslims - 

Psalm 46:1-11

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble . . . "

"Therefore, we will not fear though the earth should change;
though the mountains slip into the sea . . .

"cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

C.  And, whatever the USA election brings, steady your heart in God and His Word, with His people, humble yourself under His mighty hand.  (James 4:10; I Peter 5:5-10)

"This I know, that God is for me" - Psalm 56:9

"If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31)  see larger context of Romans 8:28-39

Addendum:
Further doubt on the "Jesus' wife" fragment:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/09/more-reason-to-doubt-jesuss-wife.html

Addendum # 2 (Sept. 26, 2012)
The "Jesus Wife" fragment judged a total fake.

Muslim’s favorite conservative scholar proves them wrong

 Richard Bauchkam calls Mark 10:17-18 “a wonderful double entendre” and shows Jesus is actually claiming to be God!  (see below for exact place in a radio interview.)

A double entendre (literally: double meaning) is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first (more surface) meaning is straightforward and direct speech, while the second meaning is indirect and "underneath the surface" and usually the real intention behind the bare words.  

Oriental cultures, Middle Easterners, especially Iranians, use this kind of language and technique all the time in their poetry and their culture of “saving face” and “honor vs. shame”; has made them over the centuries experts at “indirect speech”. 

Jesus is indirectly claiming to be God, using an eastern method of indirect speech; but westerners think it is straight forward speech. 

On the Unbelievable Radio program, on October 10, 2009,  there was an excellent discussion between James Crossley and Richard Bauckham, about his book, Jesus and the God of Israel.

Muslims love to use Richard Bauckham to try and cast doubt on the NT and the gospels.  While Bauchkam is not an inerrantist, and not as conservative as I am or as Dr. White is; Bauchkam is hardly a good source for Muslims to use, because on this particular radio discussion, Bauchkam believes Jesus is claiming to be God in Mark 10:17-18. 

Shabir Ally and Paul Bilal Williams use some quotes from Bauckham as somehow trying to show that the gospels are not reliable and changed, yet in this program, Bauckham takes Paul Williams’ favorite passage (Mark 10:17-19) and demonstrates that Muslims are wrong on its meaning.  Williams brings up Mark 10:17-19 many times at his own blog. see here:  

Update to this article, Sept. 28, 2015:  I took out the old url of Paul B. Williams old blogs, because there is some kind of malware/scam there.  
(No longer available as Williams keeps changing his blog; several times.  One time he even left Islam for a few days and then came back and repented.)  Williams new blog, as of Jan. 2015, is www.bloggingtheology.net


and here, What must I do to be saved? (no longer available)

and here, "Why do you call Me good?  (no longer available)

In all three of these articles, he leaves out verses 23-27.

At Williams' three different blogs which he has changed, if you could look around, it seems that he has a blog article on Mark 10 or the gospel of John and/or liberal scholars every several blog articles.  He especially likes Mark 10:17-19 about "Why do you call Me good?" or about "keep the commandments", and seeing that from a Muslim viewpoint, he thinks Jesus said that in order to teach that someone is able to keep the law and be saved.   His Islamic worldview has blinded him from seeing the real meaning of this great passage, especially if one reads all the way until verse 27.  Of course, only the Holy Spirit can lift the blinders off sinners' hearts.

Williams constantly quotes the Mark passage, but always leaves out verses 23-27 in his polemics.  Williams constantly uses Mark 10:17-18 to try and say that Jesus is denying His Deity; and he constantly uses Mark 10:19-22 to try and say that Jesus teaches that salvation comes by obeying the law of God.  He is wrong on both accounts.  By leaving out verses 23-27, Williams is avoiding the deeper meaning of why Jesus approaches the rich young ruler the way He does.  We will address that issue later, Lord willing.

Bauckham on “why do you call me good?”

http://www.premierradio.org.uk/listen/ondemand.aspx?mediaid=%7B8C40D9DC-9FFE-4E03-9541-72004F6A822B%7D

I am not going to type out every word in this section of the interview; I invite the reader to listen to the whole thing.  However, I want to include key phrases and sentences of Bauckham, and intersperse with my own comments.

Beginning at the 43:31 mark – Richard Bauckham – “can I come back to Mark ?

because in Mark chapter 2 – who can forgive sins but God alone?”, he is “expressing precisely one of these uniquely divine qualities” - qualities of God .

Mark 6 – “What kind of man is this who the wind and waves obey his voice?  Only God can rule the chaos - Order out of chaos; a very OT idea about God.”

Mark 10:17 ff – “Why do you call me good, only God is good. Actually works the other way, Jesus is good, so Jesus is God.  Bauckham calls this a “wonderful double entendre”,  and “if you are not thinking, you would say that Jesus is saying I am not God”; but Jesus is actually trying to get the rich young ruler to think about true goodness.  Thus, Bauckham is confirming the orthodox position of how to interpret this passage.  Jesus is not denying that He is good or God, but in an indirect way, Jesus is actually claiming to be God.  In effect, Jesus is saying, “If you recognize Me as good and call Me good, then you should see that I am God, since only God is good.”  But the man didn’t really understand absolute goodness. 

Mark 14:61-64

This is a very clear passage that Jesus is claiming Deity.  Even the Jews know that the Messiah is going to be “the Son of the blessed one”!  The Jews know Psalm 2 and 2 Samuel 7:13-14 and Proverbs 30:4 and Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13-14. 

Jesus quotes from Psalm 110:1 and Daniel 7:13-14 and the Jewish leaders tear their robes and say that Jesus has committed blasphemy by claiming to be the Messiah, the Son of God.  Jesus also said, “I am” ( ego eimi = εγω ειμι ) in verse 62.    Muslims and other skeptics like to make a big deal about the “I am” statements in John, and they claim that there are none of them in the Synoptic gospels.  Well, here is one.  Mark 6:50 is another “I am” statement. 

Bauckham says the clear claim of deity is there in Mark, so it is not only in the gospel of John, as some, particularly Muslims are saying, but the Deity of Christ is clear in Mark also.

Dr. White’s recent Five sermons on the Gospel according to Mark:

http://www.aomin.org/aoblog/index.php?itemid=5202

In his first message, “The Bookends of Mark” – he shows that Mark 1:1 (the Son of God – for an article about the textual variant here, see this.) and Mark 15:39 (“truly this man was the Son of God!”) – the centurions’ confession that Jesus is “the Son of God”, demonstrates Mark’s purpose of testifying that Jesus is the Son of God, the Messiah.  Dr. White made a great point about the Roman Centurion and his familiarity with death, in Mark 15:43-45.  The Roman Centurion better be sure Jesus was dead, since he had to give testimony to Pilate himself.  If he was wrong, he would have been executed.  The seriousness with which the Romans dealt with soldiers and guards who did not do their job well is seen in Acts 16:27.  The Philippian jailor was about to kill himself, because he had fallen asleep earlier, and he thought that Paul and Barnabas had escaped in Acts 16:27, after the earthquake. 

There are a lot of nuggets there that Dr. White brings out in these five sermons.  Because Muslims are not only using liberal scholars, but now they are using (and abusing) more conservative scholars to attack the New Testament and the gospels, we need to equip ourselves to be “ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us” to Muslims, and take up our cross in discipleship. (see Mark 8:34-38)

For two other articles on the unity of the gospel of Mark and the Deity of Christ in Mark, see here, and on the testimony to the resurrection of Jesus in Mark, see here. 

Credit goes to someone named "Monty" in the aomin chat channel, a few days ago (last week); for pointing to this particular Unbelievable Radio program, the discussion between Bauckham and Crossley.  

Did God really say? (Part 2)

Another excellent panel discussion - this time on Inerrancy at the T4G (Together for the Gospel) conference back in April of this year.  I don't think I noticed the title of this one, "Inerrancy:  Did God Really Say?" - before I gave the same title to the article on Egalitarianism and Homosexuality and their discussion at T4g.  See Did God Really Say? (Genesis 3:1) (Part 1)

Participants were Mark Dever, Peter Williams, Simon Gathercole, John Piper, Al Mohler, and Ligon Duncan.

They start off by reading from the first 3 articles about what T4G believes about the Bible, under the "Affirmations and Denials" at the web-site.

Mark Dever points out that the phrase "the Bible is the Sole Authority" means
"sole final authority"; "sole ultimate authority"; and Al Mohler says, "We mean sole authority in the sense of the Sola's of the Reformation; it's not a naked authority, but it is the ultimate authority."  I think they should have added, "The Bible is the sole infallible authority", just to be even more clear; and flesh out what other secondary authorities are - ancient creeds, doctrinal statements, confessions of faith, local church, godly and qualified pastors, teachers, elders, seminary professors, good Biblically based books and commentaries - these are secondary authorities that are not infallible.

The names of some who are mentioned in this discussion and yet claim to be evangelical but have abandoned Inerrancy are Kent Sparks and Peter Enns.   Triablogue has written a lot on Enns.   (Go there and do a search for specifics.)   Fuller Theological Seminary was mentioned that it was in 1971 that they took out the word "inerrancy" from their doctrinal statement.  Fuller Seminary has been on a downward slide ever since.

What is interesting to me is that it was Professor Jack Rogers (along with the book he wrote with Donald McKim against Inerrancy) who was one of the main ones, if not the main one, who took Fuller down that road.  He has in recent years (at least since 2001, maybe earlier) come out for "same sex marriage" and affirmation of homosexuality.  See here in his blog totally given over the abomination of homosexuality and so called "gay marriage" and ordination of homosexuals.  He seems to be one of the driving forces behind the liberalism and ordination of homosexuals in the PCUSA.  He served as the moderator of 213th General Assembly of the PCUSA.  The footnotes point to articles written in 2001.

 James Barr was another liberal scholar who attacked Inerrancy in the 1970s.  Muslims are today still using Barr's book today to attack the Bible.  (especially Paul Bilal Williams)

So, it does seem that there is a subtle connection at least some of the egalitarian movement ( In Did God Really Say? Part 1), the pro-homosexual agenda in liberal churches (not so subtle by Rogers and his web-site), and liberalism and the denial of inerrancy.  They seem to be connected; and they probably started with a subtle denial of inerrancy and grew from there.

Getting to the Specific Issue

David Waltz wrote:

Do not wish to digress here, but it does remind me a bit of James White’s charge/s leveled against Muslim apologists who quote “liberal”, critical Christian scholars in their debates, whilst James allows himself to use “liberal” and critical Islamic scholars.

That is not the exact charge that Dr. White makes - he is not saying Muslims (or anyone else) cannot quote or use any liberal Christian (or Islamic) scholarship at all, at any time, for any reason; he is saying the specific example of them using liberals/skeptics/agnostics and non- inerrantists ( like Bart Ehrman/Bultmann/Crossan/and even James Dunn, who is not as liberal as the rest) against the text of the NT undermines the Muslims’ whole Islamic religion and the Qur'an, since the Qur'an affirms the Torah, Zobur (Psalms of David) and Injeel (Gospel) of Jesus as revelation from the one true Creator God who is able to speak and inspire books. (Surah 2:136; 5:46-48; 5:68; 10:94; 29:46)

Islam claims it is the third in line of the Monotheistic religions and that the first two (Judaism – in “the law and prophets and Psalms”) and Christianity (Injeel = Gospel) were given truly at that time in a “dispensational” (in stages for each time period) kind of way. Dr. White is saying that their attacks on Scripture undermine Islam as the 3rd religion that "completes all religions", since Islam itself is based on those 2 previous religions and their books.

David, do you see the difference?

For example, we can use Ehrman and Crossan and other liberals/skeptics/agnostics to help affirm the historical reality of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ by the Jewish leaders under Pontius Pilate, around 30 AD, because the specific point where they agree with true history, undermines Islam and its denial of true history (denial of Christ's crucifixion - 4:157), and because at the same time, it is powerful even more because those same liberals reject the miracle of the virgin birth of Christ, which Islam accepts. (Qur'an, Surah 3:45-48; 19:19-21) The inconsistency is with Islam and the Qur'an. Since Muslims believe that God is one and is the Almighty Creator and speaks and gives revelation in books, and even names the books of the previous revelations, "the Law", "the Zobur", and "the Gospel", then it is inconsistent for them to use liberal scholars specifically on the text of the Text of the Bible, as their main attack that under girds all of their apologetic method of the doubting of the Biblical text. Furthermore, the Qur'an never says the text of the NT has been corrupted, although that is their theological belief, because the contradictions of the Qur'an force them to come up with that conclusion.

Everyone should be interesting in listening and watching Dr. White's debates against Muslims, and his recent ABN shows ; here on the NT textand here on the crucifixion; and here on the two natures of Jesus part 1; and here on the two natures of Jesus, part 2getting his DVD's and get prepared to witness to Muslims and deal with their questions. www.aomin.org

Given the times we live in today, I hope and pray that those who only enjoy Dr. White dealing with Dave Hunt or Arminianism or Roman Catholicism will see the crucial and strategic importance of equipping the church to deal with Muslims and evangelize them and reach out to them in speaking the truth, love, boldness, gentleness, patience, and respect.

Therefore, John Bugay can use Peter Lampe, and has used him well in his historical research on Rome against the Roman Catholic Claims of the Papacy and authority, even though Lampe may not be an inerrantist on the Scriptures.