I just listened to the debate between Michael Brown and Gary DeMar on whether the church has replaced Israel. This was one doozy of a lopsided debate. You can download it for free here.
Gary DeMar is stuck in 1970 when the The Late, Great Planet Earth was published by Hal Lindsey. I have noticed this in his debates and writings. He certainly did not prepare for this debate with Brown and it shows embarrassingly. You would thought that DeMar came to debate the pretrib rapture with Lindsey, not Brown who is not a prettriber nor a dispensationalist.
In his opening statement, DeMar committed the common word-concept fallacy as well as the illegitimate identity transfer fallacy. His opening ended up with some digression that had nothing to do with the thesis. In Brown’s opening statement he was articulate and demonstrated the consistent teaching between the Old Testament and the New Testament, the vast majority of texts that DeMar did not touch.
I wish, however, that Brown would had pointed out DeMar’s linguistic fallacies, such as his flawed lexical claims. If I ever debate Demar (as well as on his errant preterism), I would not allow him to get away with it.
One piece of advice for DeMar. When you participate in a debate there is a two-fold aspect. You debate a topic and a person’s interpretation of that topic. Brown kept on saying, “that is not what I believe.” DeMar came with his 1970’s template, but it did not work in this debate.
Brown did an excellent job in defending God’s promise to Israel. I recommend it.
