Gary Novak's Unfounded Attacks on the Validity of Dr. White's Doctorate Degree with R

This is the Dividing Line, the Apostle Peter commanded all Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Your host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. This is a live program and we invite your participation.

And now with today's topic, here is James White. And good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, if this is a familiar voice, it's not the one of Dr.

James White, it is Rich Pierce sitting in for Dr. White today on the Dividing Line. And well,

I'm going to ask you to bear with me just a little bit as I get comfortable in the chair. You may have noticed that I haven't been on for a while and so this is kind of like riding a bike.

While I know how to do it, it may be a little shaky at first, so I'm going to try to get into my stride here as I try to struggle into the groove.

Today, letting you know what's been going on, Dr. White is in Illinois today. I believe that he is speaking at the

Families Against Cults Conference, Dan and Augusta Harding. I could be wrong about that,

I was trying a few minutes ago to figure out where it was he went for that, but I believe that is correct.

I'm sure that folks in the chat room will correct me on that if I am incorrect and they'll let me know the proper place that he's speaking at.

So he is tied up this afternoon, so I'm going to be sitting in and just want to let you know, bring you up to date on some things that have been going on around here.

You may not know, Alpha Omega, just like any other organization as of late, we've been suffering too with the financial situation around here.

It seems that, well, it just seems that I guess over the last few months with all the big concern over the economy, folks have really reined in their giving.

I know for a fact that we're not the only ones that have been hit hard by that, but I do need to let you know of that need, that we do have circumstances and bills that we need to pay, and certainly as our statement on giving and supporting us, we don't believe in begging for money.

But it has been pointed out to us in recent days, very effectively, that some folks might get the impression that we're set, that we're sitting back with some big fat cat donating to us, and we have all of our needs met, and we don't need to be donated to, and that's just not the case.

And I want to communicate that to folks and let them know that we do have needs here at this ministry, and we want to be able to do a whole lot more than what we are doing.

And at the same time, we are good stewards with what God puts in our hands. We have a motto around here that we make a penny scream before we let it go.

So I want to let you know that we want to make sure that we do the very best that we possibly can with what we've been given.

Moving along, I know that Dr. White has reviewed the fact that we have just wrapped up our biannual outreach to the

Mormon Church with our trip to Salt Lake City, and going up there and passing out tracts, and Dr.

White's debate, I'm really hoping to get my hands on those tapes here real soon, so that I can get them available to you, so that you can listen to how the debate with Richard Hopkins went.

Also, we passed out between Salt Lake and the week, almost a week and a half out in Mesa, we passed out a tremendous number of tracts.

I think, honestly, it was a record for how many tracts that we actually have gotten out in the past.

That being a record with the, if you will, the number of bodies of folks who came out and helped us,

I would say would be, was average. We've had bigger groups show up, and we've had smaller years as well, but in this circumstance, with a medium -sized group, there's just no question about the fact that we set a record in getting out more tracts than we've ever gotten out before.

Again, just so you know, we print our own tracts, that's where they come from, again doing the very best that we can to be good stewards with what we have, and we've got an old printing press in the back room that we're still trying like crazy to learn how to use better and better so that the product that we put out of it is best appearing, and if you will, doesn't cause offense in and of itself just because of its appearance.

Now, today's topic, today's topic that I'm going to be getting into is a bit controversial within our own circles, and I say that because there are some folks who've kind of expressed to me that they wish

I wouldn't go into this topic, and I must admit to you that I recognize that in a sense, there is a sense that I have of pearls before swine here, and I want to explain myself before I go climbing into this, that folks understand the reason that I'm going to get into this topic.

The reason is not that I feel that Dr. James White needs to be defended by somebody else, and that his doctorate needs defense.

I don't believe that at all. But what I do believe is that there are allegations out there that have been made by some folks irresponsibly.

They've been out there for a few years, and I've found that they aren't going away. They haven't gone away.

These allegations are lingering, and I expect it from the other side.

I have grown to expect the kind of personal attack, the kind of, we don't like the message, let's shoot the messenger, because we can't deal with what the message has to say, approach.

And the problem with that is that you, as I think

Dr. White has over the years, tried to take on this topic with a very take -the -highest -road -he -possibly -can approach to the matter while still dealing with it, and still being straightforward with it.

And that, I think, is something that we need to recognize, that it is the approach we need to take.

We don't want to get down into the gutter of these kinds of ad hominem approaches.

But I get email, folks. I'm the one who gets the email as they're coming flying in the door, and I basically say, okay, this is going to go to so -and -so, this is going to go to so -and -so, and I make a determination as to the why.

What disturbs me is how many emails I get from folks saying, why would someone as brilliant as James White get a fake degree?

Why would somebody as brilliant as James White lower his standards just so he can get a doctorate?

And these aren't Mormons writing me. These are Christians who haven't really gotten the big picture.

They don't know, they're not aware of the whole story, and they haven't really taken a good look at the information that we have out there.

And these are people that, to say the least, have been duped. They write me, and they ask the question that they've asked in earnest, as a

Christian, because they don't understand that a work like ours that,

I think, does take a scholarly approach that prides itself in being very careful to represent the other side accurately, no matter who it is we're dealing with.

These folks are confused. Now, that's been sticking with me for a while.

That I've had hanging out there for some time in the past, and it's always stuck in my craw, and I've done my best to explain to people, point them to the whole story, get them to the webpages that draws all this stuff out, so they have a good, clear understanding of what's going on, and they understand that there is no sinister activity going on here.

I believe it was on the second night out in Mesa, maybe the third night, a man walked up to one of our volunteers,

Don Kramer. During the discussion, he talked about various things, and then at the end of the discussion, he pointed at Don, and he said,

By the way, I just want you to know that James White is a liar and a fraud. Don was kind of,

Whoa, what are you talking about? And the guy, as he's walking away, says,

Well, ask him about his Ph .D. sometime. Ask him about his Ph .D. sometime. Now, Don shared this encounter with me a little bit later, and I was immediately reminded of the exchanges

James had a few years ago with a fellow named Gary Novak. Now, to put this gentleman in perspective here,

James and I had an opportunity to talk with him, I believe the following night after he made this comment, and it was very interesting, the approach that he was taking, because his objection was to Zechariah 12 .1,

that says that Jehovah creates the hearts of men within them, and he had gotten out

Strong's Concordance, and determined that the term is formed, and therefore must mean that Jehovah did this from matter that was already available to him and formed the hearts of men within them from matter, not in the manner in which you and I would understand the

Genesis account. Now, there's a few problems with that, even from within the confines of Mormon logic, but the gentleman had called into the

Marty Minto show over a year ago, and during the week that Marty was out at the pageant broadcasting live from out there during his evening local

Phoenix talk show, this gentleman called in and debated with James when he was on the air with Marty during that time, and this was the case that he was making.

Now, we all understand, Dr. White is an expert in the nature of the entire sentence, the phraseology that is used when the term

Yatzer is coupled with the term that we would, in a certain context, that it always means create.

He corrected the man, out of hand, straightforwardly, and the man tried to argue with him, and James asked him what his source was, and it was

Strong's Concordance. The interesting thing was that this is the same argument the man is making this year, and because James is explaining this from a

Hebrew perspective of the language, the man called him a liar, said he's a liar, and the next scenario we got with it was

James got out his Palm Pilot, brought up the passage in Hebrew, turned it around and said, can you read that? The guy says, well, no,

I can't read Hebrew. Then why are you making such an assertion and calling him a liar when you haven't even got an idea as to what it really says there, because you've drawn some conclusions based on Strong's Concordance, and the man remained adamant about it, and then he then went into a diatribe about how

James got a fake degree, etc. And that just put me over the edge, because it's men like this that go to websites like Gary Novak's, Shields Research, and even

Fair LDS, and they see Dr. White referred to as, quote,

Dr. Uncle unquote, James White. The insinuation there is clear. The insinuation is, there's just no doubt about what is being said, and what's being insinuated there.

The interesting thing about that is that these guys are shameless in it, and it's all based off of a website that was done a few years ago, back,

I believe, 1997, 1998, by a man by the name of Gary Novak, what

I'm going to do today is I'm going to review the allegations that have been made by Mr. Novak, as well as the responses by Dr.

James White. And as a follow -up to this program, now, mind you, next week's program,

James will be reviewing, doing the second part of his review regarding Scott Hahn's newest book,

Pale Holy Queen. And he'll be finishing up his review there on next week's

Dividing Line. And then for the next, I believe, four or five weeks, James will be back in New York on Long Island, and so we will not be,

James will not be able to do the show, and so I and some of the other fellows are going to be sitting in.

And so, on May 12th, I'm going to be interviewing Dr. Rick Walston.

Who is Dr. Rick Walston, you ask? He is the president of Columbia Evangelical Seminary.

It is the seminary where Dr. White earned, and I emphasize the word earned, his doctorate in theology.

Dr. Walston is also the author of the book, Walston's Guide to Christian Distance Learning, Earning Degrees Non -Traditionally.

Now, we have lots of web pages on our website dealing with this issue.

These programs that I'll be doing will be added to those web pages, and we will also be adding

Dr. Walston's book on distance learning to those pages as well.

Because you see, people need to get the facts. People need to understand the real story and not go off of what someone who is not a serious individual has had to say over the years about Dr.

White's degree. And so, I am going to be reviewing that information and going through that.

But I just want to say up front that the fact of the matter is that when the man in Mesa walked up and stated that James White is a liar and a fraud, he was articulating the real interests of the very organizations that perpetuate this fiction.

Shields Research, Fair LDS, these people are simply interested in character assassination as opposed to a genuine interaction with the critics of the

LDS Church. And I think if you go to their websites you find that. You know, it's interesting that,

I found it interesting researching it this week, going through Shields' website, and every time

Alpha and Omega Ministries was mentioned, there was a link. And yet, that link, that link did not take you to the

Alpha and Omega Ministries website. You'll find that whenever we reference Shields as a hyperlink on our website, you can go right to the

Shields' website. We try to take you to the very page that is relevant to what we're talking about on their website.

And obviously sometimes things change around and get moved or pages get renamed.

We try to keep up with that. That's sometimes difficult to do. But it just, I find it interesting that they take you to their webpage that gives their version, their description of our organization.

I just found that absolutely interesting. But you'll find, for instance, if you're interested in following along with me and browsing through the length of material that is here, you can go through and find this information at a webpage that I've created, http://www .aomin

.org. And you can find that information there.

Now, let's get a look of this information and start going through it. I do want to say that I am taking calls.

If you've had a chance to look through this information, if you've had a chance to see this information before, it's 866 -854 -6763 to talk to me today.

That's 1 -866 -854 -6763. Gary Novak's site was originally entitled

The Worst of the Anti -Mormon Web. Now, as I recall, and I'm thinking back of this because as I'll get into in a minute,

Gary Novak's site no longer exists in the form that it existed way back then. So I'm having to go through the form that it's in now and try to recollect things that are not there any longer simply because new information was brought in and they moved on.

In this section, and this is where we really, this whole matter started, Gary Novak asked the question,

Does James White have a genuine doctorate? Questionable doctorates, some out and out faked, turn out to be something of a standard fair among anti -Mormons.

Neither D .J. Nelson nor Walter Martin had genuine doctorates. There is also reason to believe that John Ankerberg and John Weldon have fudged on their degrees.

There is, it seems, something about the degree game that anti -Mormons seem to find most irresistible.

A while back a friend brought to my attention James White's very interesting document discussing his own doctorate.

White mentions not only that the institution granting his degree is unaccredited, but also that it is named

Columbia Evangelical Seminary. Living near the Columbia River myself, I wondered if the seminary might be nearby.

Indeed it was. I immediately sent away for the catalog and arranged to take a trip to the seminary.

I'm going to skip the next part because frankly it's just downright irrelevant. Now Dr. White, and he puts doctor in quotations so every single time

I refer to the term doctor, it's a quote doctor unquote

White, would like you to believe that CES is merely too young to be accredited. Now I want you to remember that phrase, too young to be accredited.

But the simple truth of the matter is that CES probably could not be accredited by a regular recognized accrediting institution.

To its credit, CES is very open and upfront about its lack of accreditation. One reason among many is that CES allows students to write their own syllabi.

All of the class work is done off campus. There is no campus of Columbia Evangelical Seminary.

And the curriculum seems to be designed without the benefit of regular curriculum committees and reviews. Hence there is no fixed course competencies such as one would find in a traditional school.

Now here's where the charges come in that Gary Novak lays at the feet of CES and Dr.

James White. During my trip to Columbia Evangelical Seminary on June 20, 1998 and a half hour interview with the seminary's president,

I discovered the following things. One, CES had about 155 total students pass through the institution.

Two, it currently services about 65 active students. Three, everyone on the

CES board also teaches for CES. Four, there is no library, no student services, no bookstore.

CES does not have any of the services normally associated with a college or university. I've lost count of the numbers here because he didn't actually number them.

James White's master's thesis was signed by Rick Walston, CES president. There does not appear to have been a committee review.

Most universities require that a thesis or dissertation be defended before a committee of three or four people.

Next, James White's master's contract was with Rick Walston, inquiring minds will no doubt want to know if he worked with anyone else during his coursework.

Next, James White's master's contract also indicates that he would do 45 hours of coursework and list some of the books that he would read.

It did not indicate what the courses were. Next, James White's doctor's contract was also with Rick Walston.

Did he work with anyone else during this coursework? Who besides Rick Walston read or critiqued his dissertation?

With whom did he defend his work? I suspect that James White did not experience any of the things that students at normal universities do in order to earn their advanced degrees.

Finally, a question about James White's dissertation. I did not see a copy of his dissertation at Columbia Evangelical Seminary.

Even though it is soon to be published, did White write his dissertation before his coursework was completed?

What about his thesis? There is some reason to think that White used projects for his thesis or dissertation that he had already started or perhaps even completed before finishing his coursework.

Dr. White ought to be able to clear this up rather easily and notice in the essay that we'll refer to a little bit later here,

White speaks of the King James only controversy as if it had already been published before he went to CES. The book does not seem to be related to his thesis.

I would love to be wrong about this. Does James White have a genuine doctorate? Here is what we know.

The degree is granted by an unaccredited correspondence school. There are no set course syllabi.

Students write their own syllabi. CES has no library, student services or bookstore. The school has no curriculum committees and no course review procedures.

There appears to have been no committee and no thesis or dissertation defense. The only signature in James White's master's thesis is that of CES president

Rick Walston. White's contract was also with Rick Walston. Does James White have a genuine doctorate?

What do you think? Now I want to point out here that Mr. Novak right at this point has simply asked the reader a question.

What do you think? At that point in time he calls for a conclusion by the insinuations that he has just made.

Well we're going to go ahead and take a break here real quick and we'll see you back here in just a few minutes.

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And we're back on the dividing line today. Boy, I tell you, the technical difficulties always seem to rear the ugly head somewhere along the way in this process, and my being the, shall we say, the technical guy,

I wind up having to kind of step out of the role of host and go try to see if we can't fix it.

And so our apologies to those of you who had attempted to listen to today's show while live.

I certainly would have loved to interact with callers, but it doesn't seem to be something that we're going to be able to do.

I did some checking, and it would seem that our real server host out there somewhere in the land of the net is down and is not responding to us, and so we're not even sure when we're going to be able to archive this show and put it up there.

I'm not exactly sure what to do with that, but it does get frustrating at times. Anyway, we're going to go ahead and continue with the program today in what we call a dead cast format.

That's right, a dead cast format. In other words, we're not live. Where I finished off before it was time to get a break was

I had gone through the charges or the allegations that have been made by Mr.

Novak. I think actually they're more insinuations than they are allegations. He calls for a conclusion by insinuation.

The issues that he brings up in his very first what he seems to think by his own standards, the standards that James White and anybody else who gets a degree from CES needs to be looking for,

I find that rather disingenuous. The point that we're trying to make here is that CES is taking a different approach.

The whole key to the approach that it's taking is to, if you will, step out of the box to use a phrase that's very common from within the business community today.

It's time to create a new paradigm and do a paradigm shift and look at the way we educate people in this country from a different light.

I want to step back and look at a couple of things that Mr. Novak's initial issue that he's raised here.

To my knowledge in examining this, he only quotes from Dr.

White one time. This is James White's initial report on the matter of, as he puts it, of doctorates and eternity.

Now, in this document which he prints out at four pages, Dr. James White goes through priorities and standards and what need to be important to us.

He goes through his journey in Christian education. He describes his rationale for pursuing education over at CES and the reasoning he uses for determining and pursuing a

PhD, which is very rare, versus a PhD. Before he wraps this up, now mind you, this is before he's ever said anything.

Detractors galore. I recognized when I enrolled in Columbia that given the nature of my work in apologetics,

I'd undoubtedly hear attacks upon my school and my scholarship because Columbia is too young to be accredited, quote unquote.

Such ad hominem argumentation is the norm for many of those with whom I have dealings.

It wouldn't matter where I go or what school I attend, that kind of attack will follow. I have experience teaching in accredited schools.

I have a master's degree from Fuller Theological Seminary, something that Mr. Novak does not mention. That hasn't stopped such folks from using ad hominem argumentation against me.

And any person that would be impressed by such argumentation isn't going to be giving me a fair hearing anyway.

And I can't worry about that. Instead, the person I'm concerned about, and this is the reason

I'm doing the program today, folks, is the person who will understand the following statement. A person's scholarship is not determined by the name of the school he or she attended, but by the quality of the person's writing, speaking, or teaching.

Anyone who thinks that just because you went to Yale, you must be a real scholar, hasn't put much thought into the subject.

I only ask one thing. Look at what I've written, all of what I've written, and ask yourself one question.

Does the nature of the writing and the depth of research and the understanding of the subject indicate a doctoral level of education?

As I said above, anyone who wishes to question my degree need only stack up his or her published works against mine and demonstrate that I just haven't done the work.

If they can't, they are reduced to saying that scholarship is determined by how much you spend in tuition.

And anyone who believes that isn't going to be listening very carefully to what I say anyway."

Now, the major reason I brought that up is, this is the section that Gary Novak actually quotes from.

That's right, he actually quoted. Now, Dr. White would like you to believe that CES is merely, quote, too young to be accredited, unquote.

Too young to be accredited is the only portion of that entire statement that Mr. Novak actually quoted from.

And I think the point that Dr. White makes in the entire document is totally missed by Mr.

Novak. And Mr. Novak, as he goes through all of his litany of information, and as you get into the rest of the story in all of this,

Mr. Novak ignores the vast majority, no, virtually all of what

Dr. White has written about on this issue. He ignores it, and he does it deliberately. Now, if you know somebody that has taken this issue seriously, maybe they've come across Mr.

Novak's website, and Mr. Novak has been taken seriously, which

I have a serious problem with anyone who would take him seriously. I want to read you something that has been on Mr.

Novak's site since the beginning. By the way, just to bring you up to speed a little bit here, Mr. Novak is no longer publishing his own website.

In fact, he's thrown in the towel. We'll get into that a little bit later. The worst of the anti -Mormon web archives have been transferred over to the possession of Shields Research, and you can find them at shieldsresearch .org,

and I have no qualms in letting anybody go and examine this stuff for themselves, especially because of the paragraph

I'm about to read to you. If you are humor -impaired, leave immediately.

This is not for the faint of heart, the thin -skinned or especially humorless anti -Mormons.

If you are a humorless anti -Mormon, this site is intended to mock you.

I am laughing at you. This man is proudly ad hominem.

Proudly. And I assert that anyone who would link themselves together with the work that this man has put together is proudly ad hominem as well, and should not be taken seriously, and cannot be taken seriously.

So you see, it becomes very frustrating for me when I receive emails that say, why would

James White, why would someone as brilliant as James White get a fake degree? James White doesn't have a fake degree, and this man hasn't proven that James White has anything of the sort.

There's a paper that Dr. White did called Of Gary Novak and the Columbia River.

Of Gary Novak and the Columbia River. Basically it is a response to Mr.

Novak, and I would like to point out to you something on the first page that you'll find as James White quotes

Novak's rule of anti -Mormonism. When becoming an anti -Mormon, expect your

IQ to drop at least 85 points. Or to put it succinctly, God strikes you stupid.

A few pages into his correspondence, I'll pick up with Mr.

Novak's comments to James in his reply. What I am claiming on my website is quite simple.

Your degree was granted from an institution that is not quite up to snuff. And again, it's up to snuff according to Gary Novak, from the world of Gary Novak and the standards set by Gary Novak.

Now mind you, Gary Novak, and I'll go into them a little bit later, but mind you, Gary Novak, later on at the end of this whole sordid saga and exchange of emails and charges, counter charges, etc.,

he then lists a number of schools, some of them here locally, that do things in a similar manner that he has laid out.

But you see, the problem is, is that he's totally ignoring the fact that this is a different way of doing things.

This is a different way of doing things in how they go about doing, go about educating.

And part of that point is that they get a better education than what, frankly, the university system in our country has been delivering.

Let's see here, go on here. Feel free to peruse your vast collection of farms, reviews of books, or BYU studies.

If you cannot find, hide nor hear of me, I have to admit that I find your career as an anti -Mormon to be somewhat less than interesting, and I am unlikely to ever say a word about you in print.

There are a few sections of your website, however, that may find their way to the worst. Now what

I find fascinating is, is that repeatedly, given that statement, repeatedly

Gary Novak stated that he has no interest in reading anything that James White has ever written.

So, when he criticizes in his, or questions, in his

Does James White Have a Genuine Doctorate paper, when he questions that, and questions the addition or participation of the

King James Only controversy as part of that, and talks about how it's never been reviewed, wants to know who reviewed it, he's speaking from ignorance, because he's admitted he's never read the thing.

He has no idea what the King James Only controversy says. He has no idea what, if there's anybody on the back of this book, like Dr.

Bruce Metzger, professor of New Testament Emeritus, Princeton Theological Seminary, the

King James Only controversy is scholarly and accurate, and its evaluation of opposing viewpoints fair.

Anyone troubled by the criticisms in the English translations will find White trustworthy. I hope this book will be widely circulated.

It will do much good. And there's more. There's more reviews. But you see, there's not a bunch of fat cat old guys sitting on some committee with their eyes on a little too tight, that Gary Novak seems to think should be the judge and jury whether or not

James White or anybody else coming out of a distance learning educational facility should be measured by.

They should be the judge and jury, according to Mr. Novak. And yet, here's the problem.

The problem is, is that again, this is a different approach to education.

A different approach to education. And that's the whole point that CES does. James White writes on getting a real degree.

Mr. Novak provides the following description of the process of getting a real degree at, and I've updated the link to this on our website, so that you can get to the part or the page that this is relevant to.

And he begins with a gratuitous swipe at me. If you're thinking that the requirements for James White's doctorate are something less than rigorous, you may also be wondering what the requirements are for a regular master's or doctorate.

While the requirements differ from school to school and from program to program, I will outline the requirements for an advanced degree.

And James comments, we will see that Mr. Novak did not bother to actually find out what the requirements for my doctorate were.

Instead, he listed some classes from a catalog, undergraduate classes at that, and ignored something he himself noted later.

That quote, that in a mentoring situation, one works with one's mentor to craft a program.

Hence, listing a few classes from a catalog hardly represents the reality of a program. And since Novak did not ask me for the information on what

I did, he can hardly speak to the requirements of my program with much credibility. He goes on.

Typically, a master's degree requires 30 credit hours. A doctorate requires around 54 credit hours.

Most universities require that a certain number of hours be in residence at that university.

A master's degree usually requires two or three years to complete. A doctorate requires up to three to five years to complete.

Most programs require a certain number of core courses, methods, classes, foundational issues, et cetera, and sometimes foreign language skills are also required.

Of course, students are required to take electives specializing in their chosen field. Wow. Sounds like this guy really knows what he's talking about, doesn't it?

Boy, James must just not be able to measure up here. Well, let's hear James's response.

This is generally accurate, at least in secular universities. In most seminaries, the requirements are much more extensive.

Mr. Novak mentions that he did a master's degree at BYU. If he's relating information that accurately reflects his own experience, he did 30 semester hours of work for his degree.

My master's at Fuller Seminary, an institution he forgot to mention in his discussion of my academic credentials, included 100 quarter hours of work, which converted to semester hours would be about 66.

Hence, my first graduate degree took more than twice the number of hours that seemingly Mr. Novak devoted to his own.

Now, again, the doctoral figures given reflect primarily secular universities.

The THM and THD program I completed with Columbia required a total of 128 semester hours for the work for the

THM and an additional 32 for the THD, totaling 160 hours versus the 84

Novak lists. As I already had a master's degree and had already shown proficiency in my chosen field through published works,

I had a running start on the THM. Mr. Novak, as we will see, seems very troubled that Columbia gave me credit in the

THM program for work already completed. What he for some reason forgets to mention is that the main work under construction, the

King James Only Controversy, is a work that has not only been endorsed by leading authorities in the field, it has become a textbook in numerous colleges and universities around our nation.

Columbia accepted it as my THM thesis. I would gladly put that work up against Mr.

Novak's thesis titled Eros and Thumos in Plato's Laws, both for size, content, and most importantly, in my mind anyway, since we are talking about a degree in theology, relevance to the church.

That is not to say that there is not room for studying terms referring to strong passion in Plato, as there is.

My point is that you can do real scholarship without being so obtuse that no one will ever bother to read your work, as Mr.

Novak admits in his own thesis when he writes, as if anyone would want to read that thing."

What is obvious is, if my THM from Columbia is bogus, then why is his master's real, when it required less work?

I will address the issue of review below. So far then, my own program, combining an accredited

MA and a non -accredited THM, has amounted to more than four times the number of credit hours Mr.

Novak has indicated. But there's more. My doctoral program included the writing of six nationally published books.

Most doctrinal programs require papers and a dissertation. Four of those six books would taken individually be substantially longer than many standard dissertations.

And while they are written at a popular level so as to communicate with their audience, major publishers do not publish books written so that only a few people could possibly read them, by the way.

Anyone who takes the time to examine the endnotes and sources used, something that again

Mr. Novak skipped in his research, can see that they required extensive study and research. They do, in fact, demonstrate an ability to do first -level research in my chosen field, apologetics.

And it's time for us to go ahead and take another break here. I do want to say that, again,

I will be interviewing, and hopefully we will have a live webcast instead of a dead webcast.

Anyway, hopefully it will be live at that point in time. I will be interviewing Dr. Rick Walston on this program in two weeks.

We're going to be discussing, I think, in a good bit more detail, and certainly he's a whole lot more able to articulate the issues relevant to getting a doctorate, relevant to getting a degree, and he's mostly going to deal with the issue of accreditation and what purpose it is there to serve.

That seems to be Mr. Novak's sticking point. That seems to be the critics' sticking point, and that is that CES is not an accredited institution.

But I assure you, absolutely, one thing let's be very clear on, and that is there's nothing bogus about this organization.

There's nothing bogus about it. And I challenge, I want to put this out there right now before we take this next break,

I would challenge Mr. Novak, the people from Shields, the people from Fair, who love to put

Dr. White's doctorate in quotations and cast aspersions on it, if it's so easy to get one of these doctorates, if so little is required, it should be quite easy for them to send somebody out that is, so shall we say, a mole, get a mole to sign up with CES.

Wouldn't it be interesting for them to be able to post on their website over at Shields the quote -unquote bogus doctorate, the bogus diploma that somebody got from CES.

They won't do that, folks. They're not going to do that. Do you know why? Because they in fact know the kind of work that goes into achieving the degrees from this institution.

They do in fact know that it would be much harder to complete that degree process at CES than it would, to my knowledge, at any university or college around, simply because their standards are that high.

And the point is, it's what the people learn, not the paper on the wall.

Is the Mormon my brother? Bethany House Publishers presents James White's book, Is the

Mormon my brother? In television campaigns, parachurch events, and clergy fellowships all across the

United States, Mormons are presenting themselves as mainstream Christians. Is it unloving or backward to say they aren't real

Christians? In contrast to Christian monotheism, the belief in one God, Mormonism teaches that God was once a man who lived on another planet and was exalted to the status of God, and that Mormon men can also become gods upon death and resurrection.

In his book, Is the Mormon my brother?, James White demonstrates how this fact alone means Mormons and Christians are irreconcilably at odds at faith's most basic level.

Is the Mormon my brother? is now available from Alpha and Omega Ministries Book Ministry. You can order Is the

Mormon my brother? from our website at www .aomin .org.

I'm James White, author of The Same Sex Controversy and The Roman Catholic Controversy, announcing two upcoming debates

I'm having on Long Island, New York. First, I'll be facing notorious liberal activist Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State on the theme,

Is Homosexuality Compatible with Authentic Christianity? Thursday night, May 24th at 730 at Central Presbyterian Church in Huntington.

Next, I'll be facing renowned Catholic scholar and priest Peter Stravinskas on the theme, Purgatory, Biblical or Mythical?

Thursday night, May 31st at 730 at the Huntington Townhouse Catering Hall. For information, call toll -free 1 -866 -DEBATE -1.

That's 1 -866 -DEBATE -1. I hope you can attend both the May 24th debate on homosexuality and the

May 31st debate on purgatory. Call toll -free 1 -866 -DEBATE -1.

The conference on Rome. Over 13 hours examining major doctrines and issues that separate Roman Catholicism from Biblical Christianity.

Featuring the leading Protestant apologists on Rome and America today. Listen to Dr. Eric Svensson's presentation,

Rome has spoken, the matter is debatable. When the Roman Catholic apologists insist that the principle of sola scriptura has resulted in over 25 ,000 denominations, we should in turn insist that the principle of scripture plus an infallible interpreter has resulted in an even greater number of religious cults.

Pastor Rob Zins addresses the evangelical romance with Rome. There was not a Roman Catholic church in the first five centuries.

There was to be sure a Catholic church, but this is the universal designation of the body of Christ.

It is not Romanism. Pastor David King, the impact of Romans 117 on Martin Luther.

How is one himself to have that righteousness which God requires, yea demands, and which is utterly indispensable to salvation?

It is by faith, and by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and we lay hold of the

Lord Jesus by faith alone. And Dr. James White examines veneration of saints and images.

Do you think if such a person were brought before Moses, having just been caught bowing down before a statue and lighting candles and rocking back and forth in prayer, do you think

Moses would have accepted the excuse, I wasn't giving Latria, Moses, I was only giving

Julia. Other topics addressed in this tape series, is there something about Mary? Scripture sufficiency, the Roman versus Protestant view, canonizing the

Apocrypha, an assault on scripture, Rome's sacraments, an assault on Christ's gospel, and purgatory, an assault on Christ's perfect atonement.

Look for this tape series and many others at aomin .org, that's a -o -m -i -n dot o -r -g,

The Conference on Rome. And welcome back to The Dividing Line, my name is

Rich Pierce, sitting in for Dr. White today, and I have been reviewing all the different documentation that we have here from Gary Novak.

For these people to be on the outside, looking at a legitimate Christian school, doing legitimate education, and granting legitimate degrees based on that education.

Just because some organization, yeah, they have standards, they have high standards, and that accrediting organization needs to be eventually recognized by the

U .S. Department of Education. They recognize these accrediting organizations. Many of these accrediting organizations, they run around and talk about how they do accreditation, are not recognized by the

U .S. government as a legitimate institution of higher education that does accrediting.

And oftentimes students find themselves in a situation where they got an education from an organization that said it was accredited, but it really wasn't.

And that's one thing I really learned from Dr. Walston's guide to distance learning, and that is what the standards really are.

If you really want to know what the standards are, and this is the thing, I was really hoping to have some callers on today's show, because I know that there are a number of folks who are currently attending

CES, and they had to evaluate this whole mess when they made their decision to go ahead and get their education at CES.

They looked at all the accusations made against James White and his doctorate, and they went ahead and did it anyway.

You know why? Because like Dr. White, they were more concerned with getting the education, a quality education, that when these people stand in front of a pulpit, or stand behind the pulpit, and they open the

Word of God to his people, they want to be prepared. They want to have the kind of education that makes it possible for them to rightly divide the

Word of Truth, and that is what is important. That is what counts.

Let's get back into this whole issue with Mr. Novak. Getting into the particular things in his quote -unquote investigation, shall we say bogus investigation?

I think that fits. CES has about 155 total students pass through the institution, his first claim, and James says,

I have not confirmed the number, but it sounds about right. It currently services about 65 active students.

James says, yep, that too. Everyone on CES's board also teaches for CES.

James' response, Dr. Walston has indicated that this is untrue, and that he did not tell Mr. Novak this.

In fact, Dr. Walston indicated to me that Mr. Novak was in the office a very short time, and that Dr. Walston got the impression that he was a prospective student.

Mr. Novak did not indicate that he was doing research, nor did he raise any concerns to Dr. Walston, who could certainly have helped in providing a meaningful response.

Later on, Kerry Novak responds to this, quoting me, everyone on CES's board also teaches for CES.

Mr. Novak writes, Dr. Walston has indicated that this is not true. Quote, Dr.

unquote, White caught me. No doubt he sees this as more typical Mormon lies and deception.

It might be an honest mistake, but how? The following chart shows the entire

CES board and those who teach at the seminary as of the printing of the Catalog No. 9, no date.

I do enjoy in this last particular part how Mr. Novak has, I think, reached the end of his desperation rope as he takes catalogs that have no dates on them, reads titles of people that are on staff or working there, particularly

Dr. White, and tries to somehow put together a chronology and show

CES is confused as to whether or not Dr. White is a doctoral candidate or has his doctorate, or where is it?

And he tries to paint this they -really -can't -make -up -their -mind kind of picture. But in this point especially,

Mr. Novak has been shown, and by the way, this is not Mormon lies and deception. This is

Novak lies and deception. Mr.

Novak can claim this is an honest mistake, but the fact is is that Mr. Novak hasn't done anything honest in this whole thing so far as he's tried to represent things.

He has tried to insinuate that there's something diabolical going on here behind closed doors, and he can deny it all he wants.

The honest reader can read through his information, and I think the honest reader will come away with the very same opinion that I've developed about his work.

It's typical Novak, and we can tell the difference. But he goes through a list of Mike Buchanan, Phil Fernandez, Rick Lewton, and whether or not they teach, and he concludes, so out of eight board members, five also teach at CES.

It is highly unusual for anyone teaching at an institution to also serve on the board.

Someone might consider that a conflict of interest. Indeed, it is highly unusual for the president of an educational institution to also serve on the board, and that for the same reason.

Usually the president reports to the board. How interesting. Well, I think we've already established the fact that CES does things differently.

The whole point is to step out of the box. And you know, it's amazing to me when I look at corporate America in this country today, having come out of the corporate world before I went full -time with Alpha Omega a few years ago, and the words that they used to always tell us was the one thing that could cause the company to die was we never did it that way before.

I honestly wonder sometimes whether or not distance learning educational ideas are being shot down to protect the status quo.

Imagine what would happen to the university systems in this country if somebody in the accrediting institutions out there had the bright idea of, you know what, let's set up some standards inside our organization that will enable us to be able to accredit distance learning organizations.

And let's go credit some of these. Because you see, the thing is, is that just because it's unaccredited doesn't mean it doesn't meet those standards in a different manner.

And that's the whole point. If I pursue that kind of education and I'm looking for a quality education, whoever rubber stamps my degree that I get at the end of the process is really irrelevant.

The key is, did I get the kind of education that enables me and equips me to go out and do the job or do the work that that education is meant to perform?

I can't tell you how many people I used to work with that came in with big highfalutin degrees off the wall.

And because I learned my job OJT and I didn't go to a college to learn it, I knew more about what was going on, more about how to do my job than they did.

And oftentimes found myself having to educate them. And finally, in the last part of the 1990s, the corporation

I worked for and many corporations in this country have found themselves in a situation with the people that have the degrees on the walls.

You see, they're running their organization with the people that have the degrees on the walls. And you know what?

The people who have the degrees in the walls don't know how to do their job effectively. They weren't given the proper tools in the accredited universities that they learned at to be able to keep up, to be able to do simple basic problem solving.

In a situation that flies fast and loose. I worked in a job where you had to fly by the seat of your pants with your hair on fire all day long.

And if you couldn't think on your feet, you were in trouble. I don't care how good your degree was. And this corporation, like many others, had to turn to a scenario where they had to bring in educational organizations, outside educational organizations that have frankly been flourishing in this country as of late, to go into corporations and teach the employees of that company how to do their jobs.

And how to keep up with the technology that's out there right now. Again, the whole point of it is, is that CES provides, provided Dr.

White with the education that enabled a man to stand behind a pulpit, to sit behind this mic, which frankly

I feel lost behind. Because I know the kind of scholarship,

I know what he does behind this mic. And I've seen how easy he makes it look.

And it's not. It's very hard. But the fact of the matter is,

I've seen what he's done. I've worked with him for 15 years. And I've seen the kind of work that he can do.

I've seen this man open up the word of God and rightly divide the word of truth.

But you see, mockers like Gary Novak don't care about that stuff. He wants his questions answered to his satisfaction, the way he thinks things should be done.

And when they're not answered the way he thinks they should have been answered, he then calls them issues that Dr.

White refuses to address. When Mr. Novak makes a mistake, there is no library, no student services, and no bookstore.

CES does not have any of the services normally associated with a college or university. If by no services normally associated with a college or university, unquote, you mean a cafeteria, dorms, or of the like, of course not.

Given the goal of the institution, why would such things exist? Why have a centralized library when the student will never be there?

Of course, you know, the next question should naturally be, why no football team?

I mean, how can you be a legitimate accredited university or seminary without a football team? We have to have a football team.

What about a basketball team? Where's the sports, man? Where's the sports? These points are absurd.

These points are ridiculous. And Mr.

Novak responds to that, again quoting me, there is no library, no student services, and no bookstore.

CES does not have any of the services normally associated with a college or university. If by, quote, no services, and he finishes up the quote,

Dr., quote, Dr., unquote, White, attempts to trivialize my point.

He is, of course, correct that dorms and cafeterias would be pointless. I was quite explicit in what

I meant, no, sir, you weren't, frankly, in what I meant, in what I meant by services. A library, a collection of services normally associated by the label student services and a bookstore.

Dr. White suggests that I am entrenched in the old line of thought. Really, libraries and student services are even more important in distance education environment, in a distance education environment.

Dr. White even suggests that the internet obviates the need for such services. But this is far from the truth.

Many traditional libraries offer access to at least online databases and other resources that are not available to just anyone surfing the internet.

Notice the wide variety of help available to students in the following institutions. Then he lists off Rio Salado, Mason Community, and Mount Hood Community College, which at the end of this broadcast, you'll find an interesting anecdote about Mount Hood, and Mr.

Novak. Well, Mr. Novak totally missed the point again, and that point is that this is a mentoring school.

A student is put together one -on -one in a distance learning environment with a mentor, the professor.

This student enjoys the kind of access to his professor that cannot be possibly done in a university or college setting.

For that matter, the kind of access one wouldn't even get to a teacher in high school. And this is the whole key to what the distance learning, the mentoring model is all about.

One -on -one mentoring. And so if there is a roadblock, as Mr.

Novak wants to insinuate, that somehow the students in this environment can't possibly gain the kind of knowledge or get the kind of research that they would need to gain because they don't have the kind of quote -unquote student services that one would get at Rio Salado.

Anyway, I'm not going to even go there. Then this somehow discredits the organization.

Again, the fact is, is that the mentor works with the student. And if the student were to come across one of these roadblocks, all right, guess what?

The mentor, in this case, can go over to Rio Salado or Mesa Community College or any of the other schools that he seems to find so to attain the student services for the individual, this kind of library, etc.

But ironically, again, he found these places on where? The internet.

He has links right here on the internet to these colleges. Ever hear of something called interlibrary loan?

I happen to know that Dr. White throughout his education availed himself of that quite extensively. Quite extensively.

Mr. Novak can make a big deal out of that, but it really, again, asked and answered.

Asked and answered. Let's move on to the next point here.

I figure we've got about 10 more minutes left in the show. Oh, here, this is a fun one.

James White's master's thesis was signed by Rick Walston, CES president. There does not appear to have been a committee review.

Most universities require that a thesis or dissertation be defended before a committee of three or four people.

James's reply, it was also signed by Phil Fernandez. Why Mr. Novak would miss this detail,

I do not know. My MA from Fuller did not include such a dissertation defense. As I noted above,

Columbia accepted as my thesis, my extensive work on the King James only issue, which has been reviewed a thousand times more extensively than Mr.

Novak's own thesis work. And if Mr. Novak didn't get the point of that, the fact of the matter is it has become the standard work on the issue of the

King James only controversy. Mr. Novak is somehow sitting in judgment of how they went about giving this degree to him.

Did they review this? Did they review that? And how many people were sitting there? And were those people who were on the board, were they teachers?

What were these people? That's what's relevant to him? Well, I would venture to say that Mr.

Novak, Shields, Fair LDS, and anybody else who wants to join with them in this crusade are operating under a different standard than we are.

Then the church of those who believe the Bible is the word of God and we believe what it has to say completely, they're operating on a very different standard than we are.

And people need to recognize that. This is no more than political mumbo -jumbo meant to throw a little mud and see if something sticks.

And in the meantime, people see these guys throwing a lot of mud and begin to question and wonder and think, wow, maybe, maybe.

Well, that's what Gary Novak's wanting to do. He's wanting to insinuate his way into discrediting this work.

And it's not going to happen. It's not going to work. Ah, yes. What I was just saying about Phil Fernandes.

Phil Fernandes also signed that work. And later on, Mr. Novak tries to point out and dodge out of this.

His whole point wasn't that somebody else signed it. It was that there doesn't seem to be a review committee and that Rick Walston's name being the president of the seminary should not be on this piece of paper, on the dissertation.

That's not the impression I got from the phrase that Mr. Novak initially put up. And I don't think that's the impression that he wanted his reader to have either.

Certainly don't think that that's the impression that most people who read that get from what he was trying to say.

It strikes me he is trying to obfuscate and dig himself out of this situation simply because it just simply boils down to misinformation and he doesn't have his facts straight.

James White's master's contract was with Rick Walston. Inquiring Minds will no doubt want to know if he worked with anyone else during his coursework.

As James replies, only if Inquiring Minds ignore the concept of a mentor -student relationship, which really and truly is what all this whole thing really boils down to.

Now, I could go through all kinds of different things that Mr. Novak writes in response to this.

I think ultimately, folks, and I have again I want to announce that I have put together a links page that kind of puts all this stuff together in order of events as best as I could judge it.

Some of this information is fairly old. But it has in some circles taken on a life of its own.

And the fact of the matter is is that we need to be able to give an answer here. No, it's not in reference to the hope that is within us.

It's in defense of our credibility. And it's one of those circumstances where when we read from the

Proverbs, the struggle that the wisdom writer wrote about, a lot of people think it's a contradiction.

It's not. Answering a, do not answer a fool according to his folly. Then turns right around and says answer a fool according to his folly.

The point is that when you don't answer that fool, or you'll look just like him.

On the other hand, if you don't answer the fool, he'll look just like him. And he'll be out there mouthing off, saying whatever he wants to say and and getting no opposition.

No one's standing firm and saying, this is incorrect.

This is wrong. Dr. White, in his replies, has very straightforwardly shown clearly that this is ad hominem, that they're proudly ad hominem.

And that's what they're all about. And that's what this entire attack has been all about.

In wrapping up the show today, I want to read something from the first page that Shields now shows as the worst of the anti -Mormon web.

First of all, worst news is that Gary Novak discontinued the worst of the anti -Mormon web.

The best I could tell was, from what they'd put here, was that it happened sometime last November.

And it was some fun, but it was more work than it was worth. And the truth of the matter is that for every email that loved the site,

I got 10 from our evangelical friends who were certain that I believed in salvation by works, that I had a different Jesus, and that I was destined to hell for hell.

Kind thoughts to be sure, but even the eternal recurrence of the same eventually gets tiring.

Well, I guess I have to thank those evangelical friends for standing up and reminding

Mr. Novak of what the point really is. Because the point never was Dr. James White.

Those three things are the point. And Mr. Novak tries to go on.

In fact, this is, to my knowledge, this is the only time Mr. Novak ever actually, in all of what he writes, actually deals with the issues, instead of just simply sitting back and mocking people.

And he says, This refrain from the evangelical anti -Mormon bravery is simply not found anywhere in the scriptures.

Latter -day Saints do believe that they must keep the commandments, listen to that, and endure to the end, and attempt to be faithful in all things.

If that teaching offends you, I ask you to think it over very carefully and ask yourself what in cheap grace invents, and what kind of person the

Latter -day Saint teaching of, as we say, working out salvation with fear and trembling.

I seem to have chopped off the end there. And he goes on. Here's a problem for Mr.

Novak's interpretation. Number one, this is again typical of LDS tactics, and that is redefining terms.

He redefines grace to mean, well, there's some works in there somewhere.

But we don't believe in salvation by works. Hmm. Moroni 10, 4, and 5. And when you shall receive these things,

I would exhort you, ye that, reading King James, Book of Mormon here.

And when you shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true.

And if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the

Holy Ghost. Now, that particular phrase, again, there's almost, there's works laden through it.

Ask God for truth. Now, mind you, if he says no in his word, then you need to do it with all these things, real intent, sincere heart, having faith in Christ.

Okay? Just in that, there's works in there. You've got to work up this stuff inside you, and if you come up with a wrong answer, well, guess what?

The insinuation is you didn't ask properly. Okay? And the fact of the matter is, is that Novak just contradicted himself in his very own point.

And I believe he's saying the sentence that seems to be chopped off here on my printout. Commandments and endure to the end and attempt to be faithful in all things.

If that teaching offends you, I ask you to think it over very carefully and ask yourself, what kind of person cheap grace invents?

It's interesting. Here we go again. Again, we go with the labels. All right? If you don't believe like we do, that defines grace as having all these works involved in it, and that gains you salvation, then you believe in cheap grace.

And what kind of person the Latter -day Saint teaching of, as we say, working out salvation with fear and trembling, invents.

Actually, it seems, all right. And if you were about to pounce on the word working in a previous sentence, please notice that I have made a subtle semantic change in meaning.

If you can't figure out the difference, I suggest that you enroll in a local community college and take a grammar course.

Well, guess what? Semantic change is very telling there.

He goes on, Latter -day Saints do not believe in a different Jesus. This one does not make sense. As Dan Peterson points out, you may think that Bill Clinton is a scoundrel, and I may think he is a great guy.

We may have different opinions, but we are talking about the same person. The problem is with that is that the

Jesus Christ of the Bible created Lucifer, and he created all of us. In Mormonism, he is

Lucifer's spirit brother, and he is the brother of all of us. The two cannot possibly be describing the same person.

He says, I am extremely grateful that no evangelical gets to make decisions about who enters heaven or hell.

And with that thought, we can all be thankful for the atonement and salvation by grace.

Well, and we'll go on here in wrapping up the show. It's about time for me to do that anyway.

I'm running out of time, but first of all, no evangelical claims to be able to make the decisions about who enters heaven or hell, yet the

Mormon Church does. That's right. Didn't Joseph Smith supposedly be on the panel up there of judging who gets to be in the celestial kingdom?

But that notwithstanding, the fact of the matter is that the one true

God will be your judge, sir. Only one true God. All the rest are idols, and the

God you worship is an idol, Mr. Novak. The God you worship was once a man, lived on another planet.

Well, guess what? He's dead. He never was a

God. And the bottom line is it's appointed a man once to die after this comes judgment.

That's what happens to men when they die. They don't become gods. And the fact of the matter is, is that in eternity, when we stand before the one true

God, who's never been a man, never will be a man, he's always been God.

He will be our judge. Well, I thank you folks for listening in to the dividing line today and enduring the dead cast.

It's been a learning experience for me anyway, certainly a learning experience for the guys on the other side of the wall, because normally

I'm there to try to sort out the crises, but it does seem that our audio server is down for the day, and we will try to have that back up by next weekend.

Hopefully have this broadcast up there for you to be able to listen to. I hope I've got my wheels underneath me so that in two weeks

I can interview Rick Walston, Dr. Rick Walston, president of Columbia Evangelical Seminary. Join me then.

Pray that it will be live and give us a call and talk to us right here on the dividing line. See you then.

The dividing line has been brought to you by Alpha and Omega Ministries. If you'd like to contact us, call us at 602 -973 -0318 or write us at P .O.

Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona 85069. You can also find us on the worldwide web at aomin .org,

that's a -o -m -i -n .org where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.