Interview with Rick Walston of CES on the Validity of Dr. White's Doctoral Degree

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00:11

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

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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

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Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church This is a live program and we invite your participation and now with today's topic

00:31

Here is James white and good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Rich Pierce. I'm sitting in for dr white today and We have some things to cover as I will be interviewing.

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Dr Rick Walston who's on hold right now and listening in on our conversation and a couple of things that I want to bring everybody up to speed on real quick before we bring dr

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Walston on to the line and that is first of all, I want to talk a little bit about straight gate .com

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and I have been getting a good many emails as of late and deservedly so Wanting to know what's going on with straight gate and how come all of our archives

01:12

That that exist over at straight gate aren't playing Well, the truth of the matter is is that somewhere around the last week of April I can't put my finger on the exact date straight gate their host server that actually hosts the real audio files crashed and Steven Luker who is in charge of straight gate

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Well Steve when he selects a host for the the system for the files to reside on he

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He has to shop around a good bit because when you're talking about it You know, I think is upwards of 30 gigabytes of files that reside on his system

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That's a tremendous amount of space to be renting from someone and gets very very expensive

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And so the the provider there He selected was shall we say inexpensive for that kind of space and the problem is is that as we anticipated when the report was made that the the server had crashed

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We anticipated that it would be up in 24 hours We anticipated that it would be up in 48 hours

02:30

We anticipated that it would be up in a week In two weeks any day any moment at any time and that system is still down and I'm sorry to say and So keep

02:47

Steven Luker in your prayers I think a lot of folks don't realize how much Steven puts into straight gate and making that site available it is costly to do that and Steven is in a situation

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I think at this point to where he's going to have to find another ISP a provider and That is a difficult circumstance

03:08

Given the amount of data that he has to go and and number one find the kind of space that he's going to need to Get in order to to host that site for him.

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So please understand that we're doing what we can to To get straight back straight gate back online to get the real audio archive of the dividing line back online

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We have a small archive or small amount of space on the server that we use for this program and we're providing some at least current history files over there for folks and That's right monogram this year this this year.

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It should be back this year and anyway, the Please pray that Steve is able to get that back online soon and and that it would be a

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Probably an affordable environment for us that that he could be able to do that Anyway moving right along I Believe is three weeks ago.

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We covered the Gary Novak story. I did a program on there I haven't been on the air in a while And so it was a little bit like trying to get my feet back underneath me again after not walking for some time

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But I think I'm back in the action again here and I've got my rhythm back not so many you know stuff like that, but On hold and let's go ahead and bring him on the on the air.

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Now is dr. Rick Walston. Dr. Walston. Are you there? Can you hear me? I am here It's good to hear your voice, sir

04:42

Warren if I can get a little bit more volume on my headset here from dr Walston, I'd like to be able to hear him just a little bit better and How is how's the weather up there you're in you're in Washington State, right?

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What city are you in Buckley in Buckley? We're about 30 miles east of Tacoma.

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Uh -huh and There's that sound again Warren boy. I hate that. We rewired the board a couple of weeks ago.

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Dr Walston and thought we had all the kinks worked out of it and maybe he needs to just back off my headphones a little bit

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I'm not sure but anyway One of the things I really want to get into and you you heard my my show when

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I covered The show on Gary Novak and his commentary regarding. Dr. White's Doctorate the degrees that dr.

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White has earned and that he did those through CES and folks for those who do not know

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Dr. Walston's affiliation. He is the president of Columbia Evangelical Seminary and And He has also written a book that we are now feature featuring at a omen org called

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Walston's guide to Christian distance distance learnings earning degrees non -traditionally and We're gonna cover not only talking about dr.

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Walston's point of view Regarding Gary Novak's charges. We're also going to get into dr.

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Walston's book as well as talk about Columbia Evangelical Seminary and What is going on there?

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What kind of students are signing up for? Columbia what what kind of interest what kind of things draw a student to?

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Columbia and one of the things I do know for a fact and dr. Walston I'm not sure if you're aware but on the dividing line one of the things that we have is it's an interactive program we have a chat room and Our chat room right now has about 23 people in there

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Most of them are listening to the program as we speak And so I actually can monitor the program the chat room and as people make comments in the chat room

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It's kind of their way of talking back with us and one of the things that are saying what's that?

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Yes, I can read what they're saying But I you know, we don't like to feed into the hiding behind the computer screen kind of mentality we like to encourage these folks to call in and get on the line and so I want to do that right now and let these folks know that they can call in get on the line at 866 8 5 4 6 7 6 3 and again, 8 6 6 8 5 4 6 7 6 3 and there's one individual in particular that I know is a current student at CES and he has given me a great deal of feedback regarding his experience at CDC CES and I do want to encourage him quite strongly to to give us a call and Interact with dr.

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Walston in And being able to talk about his experience at CES now, dr.

07:41

Walston Focusing on Gary Novak's summation of all of what

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Went back and forth between him and dr. White and some of the points that he made I'd like to get an idea of what you've read and what your thoughts are about his conclusions that he's drawn in that in that whole

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Correspondence. Well, the first thing I'd like to state is that mr. Novak's issues are not about dr.

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White's degrees The real issue for mr. Novak is dr. White's theology What mr

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Novak has done is introduce a way a red herring into the discussion and logic a red herring is anything that draws attention away from the central issue

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You see for every minute that mr Novak can get dr. White in a discussion in defense of his own degrees

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That is one more minute that he puts dr. White's energy and our eyes on something other than the central issue

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And that's the more an error In fact when this all began which was a few years ago

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My nephew who was only 18 years old at the time. His name is Brandon He looked at what mr

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Novak had to say and he looked at the situation and he said if mr Novak has a problem with dr. White's theology

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Then that's what he should address to talk about his degrees is simply irrelevant and that from an 18 year old boy

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So I thought that was pretty bright on his part interesting Now we also remember Walter Martin most of us and Martin once said you can win a fight with a skunk but why would you want to and One of my former pastors had said

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To me in discussion about you know, the mudslinging that people do it from time to time He said have you ever noticed that if you actually get real mud on your clothes and you try to wipe it off You just smear it in but if you let that mud set

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Dry and cake it's rather easy to brush off after a while. So in my ministry and in my life

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I've attempted to make it my personal rule to stay in line with those concepts. Don't fight skunks and don't wipe mud

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But sometimes we have to Defend situations that are there even though it's just mudslinging.

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And so these this is one of those times I think that we really have to deal with it interesting. Excellent now specifically,

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I think that there are some things in his conclusions that we need to to deal with and Again, remind our listeners.

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I put a web page together that kind of links all this together and after our Discussion is over with today.

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I'll add the two programs to that web page It is a Omin org forward slash

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Novak that's in lowercase letters dot HTML and And folks can go and basically go through the history of all the different exchanges that took place but ultimately what

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In in in mr Novak's last commentary which was titled of James White and the

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Salt River or dr White leads an excursion in the art of non sequitur and ad hominem and In which piglet nearly meets a heffalump

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He He makes some conclusions or draw some conclusions that he kind of indicates that dr

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White didn't deal with certain things or is missing the point or Is somehow

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Dodging the issue the real issue and I'm wondering if it's possible that you could

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Could interact with some of the points that he makes sure do you want to read them? Yeah, and he begins in his first section here.

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He says now I'm not interested in a whole host of issues with which dr White seems to believe are critical to any discussion of his

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THD I'm not interested in one his books Two articles three tapes and virtually all of the materials that he sells on his website and on the website of his church

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The content and competence of those materials is not the issue I'm simply shelving that question for the time being neither am

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I calling into question dr White's scholarship as he correctly notes scholarship and degrees are two separate things

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Again, I'm shelving that question for the time being the one question with which

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I am interested is the validity of dr White's THD Did dr.

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White do the things that normal doctoral students do to agree and in my opinion?

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There's nobody who can answer that question short of dr. White himself, but no one who can answer that question more

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Effectively than you sir. Well, thank you. I think the first thing we have to understand is there's an old phrase called framing the issue and Mr.

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Novak as is actually an expert at that when he says that he's not interested in a whole host of issues

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And then he goes through to name. He's not interested in dr. White's books and articles and tapes The problem of course is that he's saying he does not want to discuss the very products of dr white's

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THD So in other words, he's not interested in the very things that dr. White did to earn the degree

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He's not interested in doctors dr. Which book on Roman Catholicism But that was the product of one of those classes he's not interested in dr.

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White's book on Mormonism, but that was a product of one of his classes He's not interested in dr White's book on the

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Trinity, but that was the product of one of his classes So it's disingenuous for mr Novak to say on the one hand that he's not interested in the various scholarly products that James White has produced

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He's only interested in what Dr. White did to earn his Ph .D., when in fact those products are the results of his

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Ph .D. program. Interesting. So it's just, it doesn't follow.

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How can you say, I'm not interested in all the things he did for his degree, I'm only interested in what he did to earn his degree.

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Now I did find this point interesting in that I got early on the impression, let me put it this way,

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I get the impression that in his concluding statements I think he contradicts what he's interested in, as you read through the whole series.

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And he puts a tone of sinister nature in, for instance, the

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King James Only controversy book being accepted by CES, the work that Dr.

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White did prior to coming to CES. Right. Is something sinister going on there?

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I mean, is that something that's unusual, is there a back room? In American education, in that a lot of schools want students to enroll first, do their program after the fact, and all their work after the fact, there's,

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I don't want to brush all schools with one broad brush, but quite often the reason for that is because there's less money in just simply having students hand in work previously done, as long as that work wasn't done for credits elsewhere, because then they're not taking the students through the full program.

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There are schools in European countries that will, in fact, accept a book written as the final product of both dissertations and theses, so there's nothing unusual, there's nothing sinister about it.

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The thing is, one has to determine whether or not the material done rises to the level for the degree that the person is seeking, and then two, the material done cannot have been used in the past for credits elsewhere, and Dr.

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White's book, The King James Only Controversy, had not been used elsewhere, and anybody with any kind of honesty and integrity who reads that book will certainly think that it rises to the level of a master's degree thesis.

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So, no, I mean, I catch the implication as well that you mentioned that NOVAC has there, and I noticed that throughout his writings.

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He has these little innuendos that make it look like if you didn't know anybody, you'd go, yeah, what about that?

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It seems like there's something wrong there. Well, in that particular case, there's nothing wrong at all, and this is something that he's thrown out there to give some sort of a false idea that there is something sinister when, in fact, there's not.

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Okay, interesting. Well, the next point that he goes into is really kind of in dealing with James's interaction with him, and he points to, as he puts it, he breaks them down, claim one, claim two, claim three.

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James, as he puts it, claims Mr. NOVAC did not bother to actually find out what the requirements for my doctorate were.

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Now, as I understand it from Mr. NOVAC's visit to CES, he visited with you, right?

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Right, that's true. Okay, so he says in response to that, actually, I did, although not in the way that Dr.

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White would seemingly require. I read Dr. White's webpage on his degree. I read the entire

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Columbia Evangelical Seminary CES website. I ordered the CES catalog and read that in its entirety.

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I arranged for a visit to the seminary. I held Dr. White's master's contract in my hand and read that as well.

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Now, before you respond to that, I want to let folks know that, actually, later on in the program, we're going to be focusing on a book that you wrote regarding Christian distance learning.

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And the thing that I find interesting is that Mr. NOVAC, as I see it, is trying to pass himself off as someone who has an expertise in what the standards regarding how a school evaluates someone should be and are.

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But, in fact, you've written a book on that subject. You're right. He does do that. He puts himself in a position.

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What has happened, I think, and I give him somewhat credit here, is that he has seen how it operates in certain schools that he's been around, that he's worked with, and said, aha, therefore, all schools should work in the same fashion.

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The problem, of course, is if you deal with schools throughout the U .S. and if you deal with schools outside of the

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U .S., things are not as simple, black and white, as one school may be.

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I know that Mr. NOVAC works with a community college in,

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I think it's Portland, Oregon, or Gresham, Oregon, and there's a pattern there that they use, but that doesn't mean every school uses it.

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Now, some do, some don't, and so he's reading far too much into a set of schools or a few schools' concepts about how they do things and assuming that all schools must act the same way, and that's just simply not true.

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But in his comment, you just read, you said that, or his comment said that he did check things out.

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He read Dr. White's webpage on his degree. He read the entire Columbia catalog.

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He, in fact, even held Dr. White's master's contract in his hand. Master's contract?

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I thought his issue was the doctorate program. Yeah, that's an excellent point. Yeah, I mean, this is an amazing statement, that he's arguing,

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James addresses the concept that he did not check what he did for his doctorate, and in response, part of his response is,

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I even held his master's contract in my hand. It has nothing to do with it. Besides, the whole thing is simply astounding anyway.

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I would hope that any degree is more involved than simply what's on a school's website or in their catalog, and as far as holding

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Dr. White's master's contract in his hand and reading it, he did. I was there. He looked at it, but it should be obvious that the contract is just an outline of the work and not the work itself.

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But see, this gets back to his initial framing of the issue. I'm not interested in what he's produced. I'm only interested in his degree.

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Well, he can't be interested in the degree and what he did for the degree if he's not interested in what he produced. And so he's looking at everything except the final product.

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I think when Mr. Novak says with great gusto that he has done his research into Dr. White's work, it's just simply false, unless he's read all of Dr.

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White's books. Articles, listened to the audiotapes that were the products of his PhD, then his boast that he has researched what

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Dr. White has done for his degree is simply ridiculous. And what's amazing is that he's specifically stated that he's not interested in any of that.

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Exactly. And see, that's the disingenuousness. I'd like to come up with a quick analogy. Nothing comes to mind, but to say simply,

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I'm not interested in all the things he's done for his degree. I just want to know what he did for his degree. I mean, the obvious smokescreen here is so blatant,

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I'm surprised that more people haven't caught it. And what's fascinating about this is

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I think the analogy is pretty plain, and it has to do with the religion that Mr. Novak is involved in.

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It is typically a, don't confuse me with the facts, I've made my mind up position. And I think that's really consistent.

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He is, at least in that regard, consistent as he's conducted himself here. Well, you know,

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I said earlier, he's an expert at framing the issue. Mr. Novak, I think as Mr. is calling, he should be a politician. Excellent point.

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Okay, as he deals with the next portion of James' remarks, claim number two, James speaking, my own program has amounted to more than four times the number of credit hours

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Mr. Novak indicated. And Mr. Novak responds, so what? I've never complained about the number of credit hours that Dr.

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White put into his degree. This is a non -issue. Indeed, Dr. White had already made much of the number of hours he put into his degree.

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This is simply besides the point. Now, I want to point out here that this is an outright lie.

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Because if you go back to, I believe it's item, I don't have the, let's see here.

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I've got papers here going right all, okay. In sections where he talks about the standards, okay.

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First of all, in his first correspondence, number seven, James White's master's contract also indicates he would do 45 hours.

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He points out how many hours he was to do and then asks the question or he says it wouldn't indicate what the courses were.

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But there's also another item in, here it is. What does it take to get a real degree?

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In paragraph two, he says typically, and he goes into all this. Well, the whole point of James even mentioning this is in response to Novak bringing it up.

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And so that's what I found absolutely amazing that he could turn around and say, oh, I never brought this up, so what?

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I never complained about this. Well, guess what he did? And not to say simply that he never complained about it. He says this is simply beside the point, which is amazing to me.

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I mean, anybody that's done any kind of academic studies knows that credits are exactly the point along with how much work you do.

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The number of credits that one does for his degree cannot be beside the point because then you'd have some people doing six credits for a master's degree and another person doing 100 credits.

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I mean, it's ludicrous to think that the number of credits is beside the point. And in essence, and I want to ask this question, regarding credits, can a student go to, quote, accredited schools and to get the same degree from one school have to put in a different amount of hours for that degree as opposed to another school and have to put in much less?

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Actually, it depends on the degree. The MA, for instance, is kind of a slippery degree. In one school, an

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MA may be 32 credits. In another school, an MA in a different subject matter may be 96 credits. So there are some leeway between schools as to how many credits goes with an

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MA, for instance, but there are some degrees that are pretty standard. The MDiv is typically 96 credits.

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They're about sometimes as few as 90 credits, but that's pretty close. The THM that Dr.

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White did is 128 credits, which a lot of people don't even realize that the

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THM, if one starts with a bachelor's degree and does a THM, you have four years ahead of you for that degree.

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It is, in fact, the largest master's degree in any field. And not only did James do the

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THD with us, excuse me, THM with us, the Master of Phonology, but he brought credits in from Fuller that he had already done an

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MA. Now, I don't remember right off how many credits that he did for his MA in Fuller, but he was able, of course, to transfer those in and then complete, finish off the rest, which was a total of 128 credits.

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So there is some leeway between some degrees, but certain degrees are pretty standard. Interesting.

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Okay. And we're burning time like crazy here, but this is a fascinating discussion,

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I think. Going to, I'm actually going to shift gears a little bit here because I think in, well, let's talk about this a second.

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Claim number three. Quoting me, about 155 total students passed through the institution. Dr. White has not confirmed that number, but it sounds right.

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He responds, I am gratified that I was able to report something correctly. I am all the more gratified because Rick Walston provided the number.

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Hopefully, Dr. White and I agree that CES is a very small school and in eight years has been able to attract only a handful of students.

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So is that what you're guilty of there, Dr. Walston? This is humorous on two levels.

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Number one, why? He doesn't say why we are, quote unquote, unable to attract students.

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And then number two, what has this got to do with what he said he's interested in, what James White did for his degree? How many students we have is completely irrelevant to what

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James did for his degree. Again, the smokescreens, the disingenuous concepts,

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I mean, the statements, they're just full of them. But let's talk about the statement that a handful of students is somehow an issue.

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There's a lot of schools, as you mentioned earlier, I've written a book on distance learning, and it's in its fourth edition, and it's been out now for almost a decade.

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And I co -authored that book in the early editions with one Dr. John Baer, who is probably the granddaddy of distance learning education and what that means.

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He's worked with the FBI in both tracking down diplomats. He's also appeared in federal court as the expert

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FBI witness in helping to bust diploma bills. He's also worked with programs like Inside Edition, 60

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Minutes, various ones like this. Most recently, he was on Good Morning America just, I think, in the last couple of months.

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Dr. White's books, excuse me, Dr. Baer's books on these topics have sold well over 300 ,000, and he is just the undisputed champion of this concept.

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He and I together produced the first two issues of the book that I'm talking about.

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In doing my research and in having Dr. Baer's input over the years, I have found hundreds of schools that operate so substandardly that a person can simply listen to an hour -long audio tape and answer 10 questions, true or false, and then get their degree.

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And I know that sounds ridiculous, but it actually goes on. Now, some of these type schools have, they claim, thousands and thousands of graduates.

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Now, would Mr. Novak, taking his logic, would he go on to say, therefore, these schools that have so many graduates must be good.

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CES must be bad because we only have a handful, but this school, which has 10 ,000 graduates, but they only require an hour -long tape for a degree or a class, they must be good.

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I mean, it's just absolutely ludicrous. One of the things that we've always strived to do as a school is demand excellent work.

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And we've had a lot of people simply drop out because they realized once they enrolled, whoops, this is too hard.

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And so the fact that we have had few students go through our program has never been a negative for us.

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It's always been a point of a positive because we would rather have 10 people graduate per year who have really put in the work, who are able now to put a degree on the wall that they can be proud of than 100 ,000 students going through that do nothing for their degree.

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So, again, two things. Number one, this has nothing to do with what James White did for his degree. And number two, the concept that simply because we're small, we're bad, just doesn't fly.

27:44

Okay. Well, Dr. Walston, we're going to take a quick break here and we'll pick this up on the other side. I look forward to that conversation.

27:51

We'll put you on hold and we'll be right back with The Dividing Line. So we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with The Dividing Line.

28:51

And answering those who claim that only the King James Version is the Word of God. James White in his book,

28:58

The King James Only Controversy examines allegations that modern translators conspired to corrupt scripture and lead believers away from true

29:05

Christian faith. In a readable and responsible style, author James White traces the development of Bible translations, old and new, and investigates the differences between new versions and the authorized version of 1611.

29:19

You can order your copy of James White's book, The King James Only Controversy, by going to our website at www .aomin

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.org. The Apostle Paul spoke of the importance of solemnly testifying of the gospel of the grace of God.

29:36

The proclamation of God's truth is the most important element of his worship in his church. The elders and people of the

29:43

Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church invite you to worship with us this coming Lord's Day. Our morning

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Bible study begins at 930 a .m. and our worship service is at 1045. Evening services are at 630 p .m.

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on Sunday and Wednesday prayer meeting is at 7. We are located at 3805

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North 12th Street in Phoenix. You can call for further information at 26Grace or look us up on the web at www .prbc

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.org. Millions of petitioners from around the world are employing

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Pope John Paul II to recognize the Virgin Mary as co -redeemer with Christ. Elevating the topic of Roman Catholic views of Mary to national headlines and widespread discussion.

30:28

In his book, Mary, Another Redeemer, James White sidesteps hostile rhetoric and cites directly from Roman Catholic sources to explore this volatile topic.

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He traces how Mary of the Bible, esteemed mother of the Lord, obedient servant and chosen vessel of God, has become the immaculately conceived, bodily assumed

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Queen of Heaven, viewed as co -mediator with Christ and now recognized as co -redeemer by many in the

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Roman Catholic Church. Mary, Another Redeemer is fresh insight into the woman the

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Bible calls blessed among women and an invitation to single -minded devotion to God's truth.

31:04

You can order your copy of James White's book, Mary, Another Redeemer, at aomin .org.

31:30

And welcome back to The Dividing Line. My name is Rich Pierce, and I'm sitting in for Dr. White this week as he is back in New York.

31:38

Yes, it's great debate time all over again. And he is, in fact, we heard from him about 15 minutes before the program started.

31:47

And he sounded like a very tired puppy. Let me tell you, they like to run him all around when they get him back there.

31:55

And my understanding is that he taught from 9 a .m. to 3 p .m. today. And one must understand that that's

32:02

New York time. So he finally finished up, I guess, around 6 p .m. that night.

32:08

So anyway, we are talking with Dr. Rick Walston. And we're going over some of the claims that Mr.

32:15

Gary Novak has made on his website a few years ago. And those claims have been now picked up by the

32:22

Shields people. And we're kind of responding to and going over the claims that he's made in his summation.

32:28

Dr. Walston, are you still there? I'm here. All right. I'm glad to hear that. Let me tell you. We'll be taking some phone calls here from you folks soon,

32:39

I hope, as the lines are starting to light up. Again, it's 866 -854 -6763. And Dr.

32:45

Walston, I do want to apologize about last week. Well, I tell you, sometimes we just never know who's shooting at us.

32:52

And sometimes those shots require immediate response. And so I kind of got a little bit preempted on our program.

33:00

And it was a surprise. So I want to apologize for not being able to get you on when we had hoped to be able to do that.

33:07

Not a problem. In fact, I would like to address one thing. One of our students lives in China, Dan.

33:14

And he wrote an email after I did not appear on the broadcast last week. And he said,

33:20

Dr. Walston refuses to be on the Dividing Line broadcast unless he can promote his garage sale.

33:27

Well, the funny thing is, is my wife is handling the garage sale today as we speak. Serious, I'm serious.

33:36

Oh, my gosh. Well, that is going on, Dan. Thanks for pointing that out. Well, folks, if you're listening in Washington, I want you to remember that Dr.

33:42

Walston has got a garage sale going on. Hey, there you go. And get over there. Anybody in the Enumclaw area, come on out.

33:48

Get over there and help out. Okay, well, let's quickly get through the remaining items, at least the high points of what are on Mr.

34:00

Novak's list here. I think we've at least painted pretty clearly the basis of the remarks we've covered already.

34:08

And let me just summarize here. What's going on with the library thing?

34:15

Okay, he gets into this, there's no library, man. And, of course, you probably heard my comments in the last program about, well,

34:24

I think the biggest thing that CES needs to be legitimate is a football team.

34:31

And without the football team, people don't have ability to be able to do real studies without a football team.

34:39

You've got to have the sports. Well, earlier I mentioned Dr. John Baer, my co -author of the first two editions of my book.

34:44

He once said that for those schools like ours, we should just have a chess team so that we could play at a distance.

34:50

So I thought that was pretty good. Well, you know, that's one good point. A debate team might be rather appropriate as well.

34:59

Sure. But now he seems to make a big deal. And I think I know the answer to this.

35:05

But he makes a big deal about the library thing and really going after, I guess, the legitimacy of CES not providing its students with the kind of learning environment that, say, for instance, a

35:21

Rio Salado here in Arizona, because they would have a library there that the student can go to to do research, to deal with his workload.

35:33

I know Mr. Novak had pointed out a couple of schools that were on -campus schools that also offered distance learning education.

35:41

See, that's where the breakdown of logic comes. If you have an on -campus school, of course they have a library. But if you don't have an on -campus school, if it's a distance learning program, why would you have a library?

35:50

I'm reminded of one of our graduates, a doctor of ministry graduate who lived in Scotland. Well, for goodness sakes,

35:55

I cannot imagine demanding him to fly to America to use our library. I mean, that would just be ludicrous.

36:01

We were able to set him up with a mentor who lived in Wales. It wasn't too far from where he was at. The mentor himself is the president of the

36:10

National Library of Wales, which is a queen appointed position, as I understand it. So I don't think that the man was without resources, just that he could not fly to Longview where our headquarters is and say, well,

36:22

I'm going to study here at the library. I mean, it's an obvious red herring.

36:27

And again, it's one of those things that simply does not make sense. In my own doctor of ministry that I did through an accredited school, which is an issue for Dr.

36:36

Novak, he wants to be accredited. So let's talk about that for just a second. Let's say I want to correct you there. It's Mr. Novak, not

36:42

Dr. Novak. Good. Thanks for that correction. Mr. Novak makes a point of the accreditation issue.

36:48

And I did a doctor of ministry from an accredited school, and they have a library. I didn't enter their library one time.

36:54

I purchased the various necessary books for the classes. I used internet resources, my own library, which numbers nearly 2 ,000 volumes.

37:03

What was the point of me going to a library where my own personal library was probably as large, if not larger, than what they had?

37:10

Plus, other students that I was studying with at the time also never entered the library.

37:16

It's not that you cannot do research at their library. I mean, you can do research in a lot of areas.

37:22

And internet is certainly one of the areas you can do the research with. So the concept that a school has to have a library or that some schools that offer distance learning have libraries, therefore, again, it just doesn't make sense.

37:35

And the other thing is, I think the thing that's being missed here is, like you mentioned, the mentoring factor.

37:43

And one of the things that I think James really appreciates about the way

37:48

CES does things is the fact that the mentor and the student frame the work. Right.

37:53

And so when the mentor sits down with that student or corresponds with that student in the beginning of the program, as they lay out what that workload is going to be, and for whatever reason, let's say the mentor decides that this particular book needs to be part of the curriculum that this individual is going to have to study and part of their studies, then in that circumstance, the mentor is going to,

38:24

A, how did he get a knowledge of the book? Okay, well, somewhere along the line, and I've seen

38:30

James do this, I don't know how many times, it's called interlibrary loan. Sure. And there are times when, in doing what we do in apologetics, these books are not well known and we have to, and sometimes they're not even in the

38:44

English language. And I've seen James go over to ASU and go in there and order a book that's clear across the country in a library, bring it in under interlibrary loan, and then...

38:59

What I'm saying, and may I interrupt for a second? Sure, go ahead. What you're saying is that this individual, James in this case, and other students of ours, are learning how to do research, not just go into their school's library.

39:10

Now, let's say, for instance, in Longview, we have a library for CES and students come into the

39:17

Longview library, but then they move and they move to Boston. Well, how are they going to do research unless they've learned how to go about doing exactly what you're talking about?

39:26

That's part of the education. A lot of the problem with the traditional schooling, in my opinion, is that students are spoon -fed and they're learning how to learn things by rote memory.

39:39

They repeat that on a test, they get their degree and they go on with life, but they haven't learned how to learn. They haven't learned how to research.

39:46

And in our program, students, they're going to have to research or they're going to die. And students do.

39:52

They learn how to research. And I've had people who have transferred into our school with accredited master's degrees, going on for their doctorate degrees, and they said, oh, wow,

39:59

I didn't realize how much work was behind this because they'd had things spoon -fed to them up to that point.

40:06

Okay, moving on here, I want to tell you, I am, you know what, folks,

40:13

I'm interested in kind of covering the remainder of these points, but we are running out of time and I want to give

40:19

Dr. Walston's book, Justice, I want to be able to discuss that, as well as what's going on at CES.

40:25

So let's, before, let me just ask you if there are points that Mr.

40:31

Novak has brought up that we haven't covered yet that you really want to jump into, I want to give you that opportunity to do that right now.

40:38

Yeah, there was one that I thought was quite humorous. It's where he talks about, let's see, I'm not sure what number this is, where he talks about that, he noted with some irony that one can access certain dissertation abstracts from various locations, but he couldn't get

40:54

James' abstract for his dissertation. And then he asks this question, and again, this is the framing of the issue, it's the insinuation, it's the sinister aspect.

41:02

He says, will it ever be listed? If not, why? And it's just, it's so ominous, you know, my goodness, he doesn't have it listed in some abstract group, and if it's not, why isn't it?

41:14

Will it ever be, and if not, why? You know, and the funny thing is, there's a group called the Theological Research Exchange Network, TRND is short for that, you can look that up on TRND .com.

41:25

TRND charges a mere $30 or $40 to have your dissertation or your thesis archived, and so it's not an issue, it's not a big thing, and it's not that CES can't do it, it's just that none of the students have ever required it.

41:37

Nobody's wanted it. I earned an accredited master's degree and I wrote a master's thesis, I earned an accredited doctor of ministry and I wrote a dissertation for that,

41:46

I earned an accredited doctor of philosophy and I wrote a dissertation for that, and as far as I know, because the student has to sign off on it, none of these three works at accredited schools ever made it into those same networks.

41:57

You can do it if you want to, you don't have to if you don't. He makes it sound as if it's part of the whole process, and if it isn't done, then it's not right, but again, even if it were part of the process, to simply pay somebody to put it on a microfiche, the point is, it still does not address what he said he's interested in, and that is, what work did he do for the degree?

42:18

Now he's saying, what did he do with the degree after he did it? So it still doesn't fall in line with what he says he's interested in.

42:24

Yeah, and there's a number of double standards throughout the entire process of interaction on Mr. Novak's part, and I want to point something out to you that I don't think, well,

42:35

I know you're not aware of. Okay. Now, I'm going to ask you a question here regarding, if you will, the genre, the whole of what you read on Mr.

42:46

Novak's site, and then ask you a question. If Mr. Novak had a copy of the tax return of Alpha and Omega Ministries, do you think he would have used it?

43:04

I certainly, I don't know, I'd be guessing in the wind. It wouldn't be surprising to me to see, from what

43:10

I've seen so far, to see something like that happen. Mr. Novak, as I said, has a way of making things seem dark and mysterious and sinister, so it wouldn't surprise me, put it that way.

43:23

Well, Mr. Novak requested our tax return back in December of 1997.

43:31

I sent him, and it was two years' worth of tax returns. I sent him a copy of our tax returns for 1995 -96, as I recall, and he had them in his possession in the middle of all this, and he never once mentioned it.

43:50

And you see, as I understand it, it's my understanding that a non -profit organization, if certainly at the time, if any of the employees are making more than $50 ,000 a year, the individual has to be listed, and it's public information, on the tax return.

44:10

And since in the one year, I believe we made about $50 ,000, and the other year it was about $60 ,000, for the entire organization,

44:21

I would guess that Mr. Novak found himself quite disappointed when he received these in that he wasn't going to be able to post

44:29

James White's salary and all the other incredible excesses that these people are down there building their

44:35

Alpha and Omega empire would have had to work with.

44:40

So I wanted to at least put that out there, that folks, not all of what

44:46

Mr. Novak has accomplished or accomplished, has been interested in, again, why would that be relevant?

44:52

He's not interested in that kind of stuff, right? It's public information. Yeah, exactly.

44:59

Now, let's shift gears here, and let's see here.

45:05

You know what, how would you like to talk with a CES student? Sure. Let's go ahead and bring...

45:16

Hang on here, I have to play a little bit of a game with our phone system. Oh, wrong one.

45:23

Hello, is this CDS? Sorry?

45:30

I don't know. You know what, I think... Oh my gosh, I think I just hung up our caller.

45:36

We don't do this very often with having a guest online, and so I am typing into the chat room right now.

45:45

Call back in. Click. Don't leave us hanging.

45:51

All right, and the caller is Colin Smith, and so... Oh, right. We want to get him back on the line here before long here, but let's go into...

46:03

You know, I have to tell you, and I've personally not been a higher education student, okay?

46:12

I met up with Dr. White back long before he was Dr. White, and I remember when he became, and he hates this term,

46:19

Reverend White, and I've worked with him. I've learned so much from him over the years, but I found your book an absolutely fascinating read, and I think that what

46:34

I found especially fascinating was how much I learned about what these terms that go behind somebody's name mean, and what these, you know, doctor of philosophy, and you go into all this, but I think the most important thing that I gained from it was a knowledge of what goes into, for instance, accreditation, and I'd like you to talk about that.

47:00

I'd like you to elaborate on what is the difference between an unaccredited school and an accredited school, and what's the point of that?

47:08

Right. Well, the differences are varied, and it would be difficult to go into all of them. The basic concept of accreditation is that there is a group of so -called neutral individuals who are academicians in their own right, who have reviewed a school and have given their stamp of approval.

47:27

Now, an unaccredited school, then, probably has not had that same process.

47:33

Now, they may have had the process, but they may not have had it through the proper channels, if you will, the

47:39

Department of Education and so on. So, let's take CES, for instance. It's not accredited.

47:45

We have not pursued it, and at this point, we are not planning on pursuing it. It's not because we could not be accredited.

47:51

It's just that we have certain things that we offer in very flexible ways that does not fit with what is typical in accreditation.

48:00

Now, we talked to an accrediting association some time ago about pursuing accreditation, and of course, they said, sure, we can do that.

48:07

But to do so, we want you to drop all of your offerings and offer only the Master of Divinity program.

48:13

Come on. Once you do that, and once that's accredited, then you can offer the Doctor of Ministry program. Now, when

48:19

I presented this to our Board of Regents, one of the members said, wait a minute, why did we start the school to begin with?

48:25

We started the school to reach people who couldn't, for whatever reason, go live on a college campus or go through a traditional route.

48:33

We wanted to help people who couldn't, because of finances or family or even disabilities, go live on a college campus.

48:41

If we were to do these things now, if we were to go just the MDiv and just the DMin, what would make us different than the other 100, 200, or 300 schools out there who are accredited doing the exact same thing?

48:54

So we decided as a board not to pursue accreditation. Not because it's not a good thing. I think accreditation is a great thing.

49:00

But it wasn't going to fit what we were called to do. The main thing about accreditation, as far as the outcome, is this.

49:09

If a student wants to work in a job, a ministry, or whatever career, that the gatekeepers, the people to whom he's going to go and present his resume to, the gatekeepers, if the gatekeepers say it has to be from an accredited school, then it has to be from an accredited school.

49:29

If the gatekeepers, however, are not concerned whether it's accredited, they're only concerned about the education behind the studies, then why spend the money for an accredited program when a non -accredited degree will open the same doors with those gatekeepers?

49:44

The concept that accreditation somehow is the sacred cowl of education in America is flawed.

49:51

Accreditation is not a static thing. It's changed over the years. The accreditors, in fact, themselves have changed.

50:01

In fact, sometime back in the mid, I think, or late 90s, there was an accrediting association that came down very hard on a certain seminary because the seminary had no women on its board.

50:13

They said, if you do not have women on your board, we're not going to renew your accreditation. I asked, what does having a woman on a board have to do with academic studies?

50:23

Absolutely nothing. It was very politically correct, though, which seems to be getting rampant in academia.

50:30

That's exactly correct. There's nothing wrong with accreditation. I want to make that very clear. Accreditation can be and is often a very good thing for those who need accredited degrees.

50:40

But for those who don't, if you go and pursue an accredited degree and you don't need one, you're going to be spending money that you don't need to spend.

50:48

You're going to be spending time away from your family that you shouldn't have to be doing. You may even have to take time off work or even move your family to another city, another state and live on campus, all for an accredited degree that will not open any more doors for you if your gatekeepers don't care if it's accredited or not.

51:03

Yeah, and you know, the thing is that struck me also about accreditation is

51:08

I discovered something I had no idea, and that is that there's organizations out there that claim to be accredited or to be accrediting organizations.

51:18

But in fact, they're not recognized by the Department of Education. Right, and that's probably one of the biggest problems for people who don't know any better.

51:27

I have people all the time calling our school and saying, are you accredited? And I say, no. And they say, thank you, goodbye.

51:32

And I try to interrupt them and ask them, why do you think you need an accredited degree? And quite often they say,

51:38

I don't know. I just thought so. And the problem is, is they're going to call some school who is accredited by a non -recognized accreditor, and that school is going to say, yes, we're accredited.

51:51

And it does not mean the same thing as a school that's accredited by a recognized accreditor recognized by the

51:57

U .S. Department of Education. Rich, you and I could start an accrediting association and call it

52:03

Rick and Rich's Accrediting Association, and there's nothing illegal about that. We could then accredit our own school.

52:10

We could start Rich and Rick's Seminary, and then we could accredit our own seminary.

52:15

Again, there's nothing illegal. There should be, but there's not. There's no laws against this. Now, what happens is when people enroll in the school,

52:22

Rich and Rick's Seminary, and we tell them we're accredited, we are flat -lying to them, because the accreditation that we have, though legal, is absolutely worthless in American academia because it's not recognized by the

52:35

U .S. Department of Education. So a school that's not accredited is not the issue.

52:40

A school that's not accredited that's lying about some sort of false accreditation is the issue.

52:46

Well, I think what I found absolutely fascinating about your, in the back of your book, you actually list several schools that you investigated yourself, and I find your evaluations fascinating as you go through and you set up a standard for what's, in a non -accredited school, what's a good idea, what's a good measure for how to judge that school, how to look at that.

53:15

And one thing you mentioned to me that I did not know, Bob Jones University. Mm -hmm.

53:22

Bob Jones, to my knowledge, is, you know, even those who disagree with it politically,

53:29

Bob Jones, to my understanding, is an excellent institution, but it's not accredited. Why not? I didn't catch that last thing you asked.

53:37

Why not? Well, as far as I understand, and I really can't speak for them, but only from what I've heard, they simply want to keep the separation of church and state.

53:46

Because ultimately, see, there's a bit of a misunderstanding here. Not all accrediting associations, let me back up and say it this way.

53:55

There is no such thing as governmental accreditation. A lot of schools will say, we don't want the government to accredit us.

54:01

Well, the government does not accredit. It is private accrediting organizations that accredit.

54:08

The government plays a part only in that they recognize these accreditors, and because of that recognition, they receive the state,

54:17

I mean, the financial aid, the tuition, the assistance, and all that sort of thing. But still, there is, to some level, in accredited schools, that affiliation with the state.

54:29

And so Bob Jones University has always said, we don't want to have that. We are a Christian organization. We want to stand on our own two feet as such, and they've done a great job in doing so.

54:37

It's an excellent school. Excellent. And we actually have a gentleman who substitutes periodically for us,

54:44

Simon Escobedo, who went to Bob Jones. And I think, and here's the thing.

54:51

It comes back to people, folks like Mr. Novak, et cetera.

54:57

What I want to know is, how is it that a man like James White goes to an institution and earns his degree in an institution that Mr.

55:08

Novak and other Mormons want to call into question as a legitimate school?

55:14

And yet, I tell you, this man stands toe -to -toe with the best of them at BYU, and they have, frankly, no words in trying to deal with him.

55:26

Exactly. He frustrates them right and left, and he does it with the facts. He does it with the education that he has, and he does it with an educational level that you can't get at BYU.

55:38

Right. And see, that's the issue. It goes back to what Mr. Novak said in his opening statement.

55:45

He has no desire to talk about James' books, tracks, audiotapes, or his scholarship.

55:52

Well, you have to. To divorce these things from his education is impossible.

56:00

That's like making a cake and then saying, after the cake's made, extract the eggs. You can't do it.

56:06

And the product of any education is the person's work and his scholarship.

56:13

And so for Mr. Novak to say, I'm interested in what he's done for his degree, but I'm not interested in looking at anything he's produced for his degree, it just doesn't make sense.

56:22

And the whole end product should be, not necessarily, is it accredited, but what does it do for the student?

56:29

Does it advance him or her in his or her ministry and for the cause of Christ? Excellent.

56:36

Well, I'll tell you what, we're going to go ahead and take another break here real quick, and we'll be right back, right here on The Dividing Line.

56:56

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

57:01

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

57:06

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

57:13

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.

57:28

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.

57:37

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

57:43

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

57:48

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

57:54

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,

58:03

Is Homosexuality Compatible with Authentic Christianity? Thursday night, May 24th at 7 .30

58:09

at Central Presbyterian Church in Huntington. Next, I'll be facing renowned Catholic scholar and priest

58:14

Peter Stravinskas on the theme, Purgatory, Biblical or Mythical? Thursday night, May 31st at 7 .30

58:21

at the Huntington Townhouse Catering Hall. For information, call toll -free 1 -866 -DEBATE -1.

58:28

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

58:36

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

58:41

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

58:49

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

58:55

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.

59:12

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

59:20

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

59:26

It is not Romanism. Pastor David King, the impact of Romans 1 .17 on Martin Luther.

59:32

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

59:44

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

59:51

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

59:58

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

01:00:09

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

01:00:14

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

01:00:22

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

01:00:30

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

01:00:43

And we're back on the dividing line this afternoon, and we are talking with our guest, Dr. Rick Walston of Columbia Evangelical Seminary, and let's go ahead and bring him back on the line real quick here.

01:00:55

And then, Dr. Walston, I am going to try it once again to talk with our first caller,

01:01:02

Collin. Hang on just a second here, Collin. And we go there, and we go there, and we go there, and oh my gosh, is

01:01:10

Collin there? Collin? Are you, I hear a voice in the background. Hello? Collin, how are you?

01:01:16

Dr. Walston, are you there? Hello? Oh yes, I'm here too. Oh, excellent. Boy, and that sounds so good.

01:01:22

Boy, I tell you, you know, I rewired the board and, you know,

01:01:28

I'm usually sitting on the other side of the wall, Dr. Walston. I'm the guy that like, you know, wires everything together, gets a brainstorm and goes, oh wow, this will work really good.

01:01:36

Then I get over here, and the poor guy who subs for me when I'm on this side is dealing with all kinds of feedback, but he's done a fantastic job today clearing all that up, and I think we've got a real good sound going on today.

01:01:48

Well, I don't know what's going on over there, but to me, everything sounds like it's running really well. I'm glad to hear it. Now, Collin, you are a student currently at CES, is that correct?

01:01:57

That is correct, yes. James White is my mentor. Really? Yes. Dr. James White is your mentor.

01:02:03

Now, let me ask you a question here. First of all, and you and I have talked about this just a little bit. What motivated you to choose

01:02:13

CES, and what kind of educational background, where were you at when you came to that crossroads of making the decision to go to Columbia Evangelical Seminary?

01:02:24

Well, briefly, I had come to the United States back in 92, and I came here having just graduated

01:02:32

Hull University in England with a Bachelor of Arts in Theology, and it had been my heart's desire to pursue a

01:02:38

Master's degree at some point. But I was recently married, I was looking for work, and so financially it wasn't possible.

01:02:45

And as the years went by, and it looked as if it might be financially possible,

01:02:51

I was looking within the area, and the nearest seminary was a good two and a half hours drive away.

01:02:56

They did have a program where I could do courses at the weekend, but as I looked at the prices of seminary,

01:03:02

I suddenly realized, well, maybe it's not as financially possible as I thought. So about, let's see, probably about five years ago,

01:03:10

I started researching distance education programs. And my research then,

01:03:17

I think CES had come across my table, and I kind of assessed it along with others, and kind of put it off.

01:03:24

And eventually, a couple of years ago, well, probably a little over a year ago,

01:03:30

I got into the chat room and got to know a little bit more about CES through James. And really, at that point, it kind of really did a little bit more of a serious evaluation of CES and what it offers.

01:03:42

And having gotten to know James and his qualifications, not just what he has written on a piece of paper, but actually his books and his debates, and talking to him, and actually getting to know him not only as a brother in Christ, but as a scholar.

01:03:59

I thought, you know, I could do a lot worse than studying under James White. And if CES provides the platform for that, then there's got to be something that is worthwhile.

01:04:10

And as I investigated, I thought, you know, this looks like a really good program. This looks flexible, where I can really concentrate my study in the areas where I really want to study, that I don't have to deal with a lot of fluff, that I can really get down and do some serious work in theology and come out with a degree at the end of it.

01:04:30

So that's really, briefly, what motivated me to CES. May I say something here?

01:04:35

Yeah, please. Well, one of the things I just heard Colin say, and I think this is the key, he said it wasn't so much that James had some piece of paper, but he looked at his scholarship, he looked at his books, he looked at these sorts of things.

01:04:46

This is, again, the point of education. What is the product? What will the student learn?

01:04:52

What will be the outcome? And I think that if we take a look at that seriously and find out what it is that this is going to do for me,

01:05:02

I think that CES is going to be up there with any of the other schools, the accredited schools as well. In fact, there was some time ago, people,

01:05:10

I started getting letters from people who were saying the amount of work that we were requiring was far more than they had done at various accredited schools, seminaries, and universities.

01:05:21

And so, in fact, we had to back off on some of our quantity, but maybe I say not quality, but some of our quantity levels.

01:05:30

And even so, in doing, we still have more work to do, our students do, than a lot of accredited schools.

01:05:38

The point isn't what's the name across the door, how big is the library? The point is what will the student walk away with in scholarship, his learning, his ability to go on with life as a learner.

01:05:52

And you know, you forwarded me, by the way, folks, Dr. Walston does periodically on his website, columbiaseminary .edu,

01:06:02

an item called Coffee Talk. And in the latest Coffee Talk, I found a section where you mentioned something regarding martial arts.

01:06:12

And if you could share that story, I thought it was very pertinent to the, if you will, reality of what's really going on here.

01:06:19

Sure. There was, once upon a time, a friend of mine who's an ex -Marine.

01:06:26

Somebody once told me that you shouldn't call them ex -Marines. I don't know if you would call that retired Marine or what, because he said once a Marine, always a

01:06:31

Marine. But anyway, my friend's name is Rick, and he's six foot four, ex -Marine, and has a black belt in about three different disciplines.

01:06:41

And I remember one time asking him if he would teach me, if we could take some time each week, that he could teach me the finer arts of martial arts.

01:06:49

And he was not teaching martial arts at that time, although he had taught at accredited schools in the past. At this point, he was actually pastoring.

01:06:57

And he said, well, you know, I could teach you, but it really wouldn't mean anything. And I said, what do you mean it wouldn't mean anything?

01:07:04

And he said, well, after you've done all the work, I could recognize that you have reached a level of black belt.

01:07:09

But since it's not from an accredited school, you really wouldn't get a black belt. And I said, well, let me put it this way.

01:07:16

After four or five years of studying with you, if someone were to attack my wife, would I be able to defend her and myself?

01:07:22

And he said, of course. And I said, then why would I need a black belt? Isn't a black belt just a belt that's black?

01:07:29

The whole point is, what is the product? And for me in that situation, I didn't care if I got a stamp of approval by a certain accredited school.

01:07:37

I wanted the ability to be able to protect myself and my wife if that event ever should arise.

01:07:44

And the point was, the education that came from it, whether or not it was from an accredited school, was irrelative to me.

01:07:52

And I think that's so important. You told me a story, and we won't get into names here, but you recently received a phone call or some correspondence from a gentleman who's been going to another school.

01:08:05

I can barely hear you. Okay. How about that? Can you hear me? A little better, not much. Okay. Well, you recently told me about an experience where a caller, someone had called you or you received an email, interested in CES, who

01:08:22

I guess had gone to one of these schools that he found out they said they were accredited, but it wasn't recognized by the

01:08:29

Department of Education. Right. And he talked about how much he learned in a year and how much he covered.

01:08:37

And can you share that? I mean, we don't need to get into names and who's and where's, but I just thought that was so sad.

01:08:43

Right. And this gets back to what I was talking about earlier, that there's a lot of substandard schools with a lot of quote -unquote graduates.

01:08:50

And this fellow had gotten himself into two different schools, actually. He had finished a bachelor's degree and almost finished a

01:08:56

Master of Theology all in two years. Now, a Master of Theology by itself, and I mentioned this earlier, is a four -year program.

01:09:03

How in the world a person could complete a bachelor's degree and a Master of Theology in two years? There's something wrong. Well, by the way, too, you mentioned that they said that they were accredited and they weren't.

01:09:14

That's true, too. And again, it's not an issue of whether a school is accredited or not. It's an issue of whether or not the school is lying to you about accreditation.

01:09:20

And the school was. In fact, both of them were. So I asked him at the master's level, what are you being required to do for each class?

01:09:27

And he said he listens to a series of audio tapes that probably equal less or fewer than five hours.

01:09:35

And then he takes an exam. It's basically a true or false exam. And he hands that in.

01:09:41

And somehow this is considered three credits worth of classwork. And it simply is not.

01:09:48

The fact that he could produce or complete, I guess, a bachelor's degree and nearly a master's degree in a period of two years, obviously there's just something wrong.

01:09:59

But this is happening all over. There are schools out there by the hundreds. And I write about it in my book. In fact,

01:10:04

I warn people about them, where people can get degrees in a very short period of time.

01:10:09

There was another school where a fellow earned, I think it was two master's degrees and two doctorate degrees in an eight -month period.

01:10:17

Well, now, how could that even possibly be? Obviously, people need to stay away from those kinds of schools.

01:10:24

But here's what I've found over the years working with CES. We've had people apply for our school, look through the program, understand that they're going to do real work, drop out, go to one of these schools and have a degree in their hand within eight months to a year.

01:10:38

And what does that degree really mean if that's how they went about getting it? Well, exactly. And if they're pastoring, and a lot of them are,

01:10:45

I want to know not just what does it really mean. How can that possibly honor Christ? How can they possibly present that to their church board and be proud of it?

01:10:54

It's an amazing idea that, I mean, it's an amazing thing that some people try to pull this off. In fact, they don't just try it.

01:10:59

They actually do. Colin, how's your experience been now that you're at Columbia and going through the workload that you've, shall we say, been faced with?

01:11:12

It's a workload. It is. I've completed a writing protocol class recently.

01:11:21

Isn't that the easiest class, Colin? Sorry? Okay, you guys are going to have to let us in on the joke there.

01:11:28

I'll let Colin tell you. I'm sorry, I didn't catch what you said, Ray. I said, isn't that the easiest class, the writing protocols?

01:11:34

I was joking. Well, actually, probably for most people, I don't know that it really is because I can understand why

01:11:44

CES offers that and why CES actually requires the writing protocols because, I mean,

01:11:49

I know people who have been through seminary and their use and abuse of the English language is quite astonishing.

01:11:55

But so far, my experience has been really good and I'm in the process of writing a term paper for Dr.

01:12:04

Weiss, having done probably in excess of 1 ,600 pages of reading for the course.

01:12:14

It couldn't really work any other way than distance education, given that I have a family.

01:12:20

I've got a wife and four kids. I'm pastoring a church and I'm working a full -time job as well. So really,

01:12:26

I need to be able to fit this in. I don't need to be required to turn up to class for four hours in the morning or whatever.

01:12:33

I need to be able to just fit this time in as my schedule permits it.

01:12:39

The flexibility is really, I mean, that's the main, in my mind, that's one of the real advantages of the distance education program and the fact that my mentor is but email away.

01:12:52

Now, are you sure you're not really just talking about a shortcut here in your life and you're just trying to...

01:12:59

Oh, no, no, no, no. If I wanted a shortcut, I would have pulled the money together and gone to seminary.

01:13:06

Like one of the ones down the road. On the heels of that, we had a fellow, I really hesitate to say the name of the university, but let me put it this way.

01:13:15

There was a fellow that was finishing his bachelor's degree at a major Ivy League university. Of course, it costs so much money to do so.

01:13:22

He simply ran out of funds and he called me and he said, would you accept credits from the school? And I said, of course, who wouldn't?

01:13:29

And so he enrolled in our program and he wanted to finish the bachelor of theology. He took two classes and he called me and he says, is there any way possible that we can make these classes easier?

01:13:37

And I said, no, sorry. And he said, well, I hate to do this, but I'm going to go back to X school because even though it's a lot more expensive, it's a lot less work.

01:13:46

And he did. He dropped out and went back to the Ivy League university. Wow. And I mean,

01:13:51

I didn't mean to interrupt you there, Colin. I just kind of wanted to throw that in there because you're going down the road of the family considerations, the fact that you're there pastoring a church and these things have to come into account as you look for higher education.

01:14:09

But the question has to be asked, and this is where you are going is what is your motivation for seeking that higher education?

01:14:17

Is it for, shall we say, as the world likes to say, upward mobility so you can have the degree on the wall that gets you the bigger paycheck?

01:14:27

Well, for me especially, this is one of the issues and I'm glad that Dr. Walston addressed this on the

01:14:33

CES website. And for me, what really answered the question was, what am

01:14:39

I going to use this education for? Am I looking to go to one of the local

01:14:45

Baptist seminaries and be a professor there? Well, that might be nice and it might look nice on my resume, but quite frankly,

01:14:53

I'm interested in pastoring a church and I'm interested in seeing the lives of the people in that church enhance their relationships with Christ grow as a result of being under the ministry of the leadership of the church, of which

01:15:08

I'm a part. And I sincerely believe that this education will enable me and empower me to be able to accurately present good information to those people.

01:15:21

It will help me in my studies of theology, in my studies of Greek and Hebrew, in all these things that I'm going to be able to better provide the flock with quality information that my prayer is that they would then be able to utilize in their

01:15:37

Bible studies, that will cause them to grow. And I mean, you don't need to be accredited.

01:15:43

You don't need to go to an accredited school for that. You just need to go to a school where you're going to get taught it. Excellent point.

01:15:50

You know, as I'm listening to this, something struck me that there is a gentleman that we've interacted with and debated, etc.,

01:16:02

that's now coming from a Catholic perspective, that graduated from Jimmy Swaggart Bible College.

01:16:09

Now, I know about Jimmy Swaggart, but Dr. Walston, is there anything you can tell me when you get into, like, for instance, some of these different colleges or seminaries that are—I'm lost for words in how to describe my feeling about it.

01:16:33

But how is, for instance—have you looked at Jimmy Swaggart Bible College? Actually, I have not.

01:16:41

And the reason why I have not is because, as I understand it, it's not a distance learning program. My research pretty much deals with schools that are.

01:16:49

And as I understand it, one has to go live on a college campus, so it really wouldn't fit any reason for me to research it and to put it in my book.

01:16:56

The only thing that I could say about it that I'm—and this is a guess, but I think it's an educated one at that—is that when you go to a school like that, you're going to hear and you're going to learn what they want you to hear and learn.

01:17:09

You're going to be told, basically, what to believe, rather than being allowed to openly discuss and debate various topics.

01:17:16

So, like, in our school, we have people from various backgrounds on our faculty and various backgrounds in our student body.

01:17:21

And if a student disagrees with the mentor, it's not an issue of a grade. It's just a point that a student and mentor can discuss, debate, and learn together.

01:17:30

That's part of the research and the beauty of it. Yeah, and the reason I even bring him up is that, frankly, in all of the different folks that I've heard

01:17:41

Dr. White interact with, this individual, I think, I've been most disappointed with in his apologetic and his approach to a

01:17:52

Catholic apologetic. And I mean, obviously, I disagree with the

01:17:57

Catholic perspective, but there are Catholic apologists that I think I—well, I guess what

01:18:05

I'm getting at is this refers to the work that you've done. This refers to what you've accomplished in that education, what you came away with.

01:18:13

And I don't get the impression that this gentleman came away with, shall we say, as much as he claims he did.

01:18:19

And I think that, you know, the Wisdom writer makes a lot of points about pride and about all kinds of different things about making sure that a man is who he says he is.

01:18:34

Well, that a man shouldn't have to say who he is as much as he demonstrates who he is. And I think that's really what you guys are trying to get accomplished there at CES.

01:18:45

Colin, I want to thank you for your call today, and I'm going to let you get going. Dr. Walston and I are going to go ahead and wrap up the program today, but I certainly appreciate your participation.

01:18:57

Good to talk to you. All right. Take care and God bless. Bye -bye. Now, Dr. Walston—lost my train of thought there.

01:19:07

Tell me about—are there some specific things that, if you have, if you will, the microphone to talk to folks and you want to tell them about what's going on at CES and what it's really all about, what kind of things would you tell them?

01:19:21

Well, the first thing I would say is that CES is a flexible program. Rather than having prefab curricula in that, when a student enrolls, let's say, in a

01:19:29

Master of Divinity program, we don't then say, okay, here are the X amount of classes that you have to take.

01:19:36

Because too often in traditional settings in schools, when a student enrolls in a certain program, whether it be

01:19:41

Masters, Bachelors, or whatever, the students are told there are certain classes that you have to take, and quite often they're classes that have nothing whatsoever to do with the student's desired goals in education or ministry.

01:19:53

In our program, the flexibility is that the student designs his own program, but not without the mentor, obviously.

01:20:00

The student just can't go off willy -nilly and pick various classes, but the student is going to design or pick the various classes that he wants to take that's going to help him reach both his educational and ministerial goals.

01:20:11

So that's one of the biggest differences. And then the second thing is, once the classes are selected, we still don't say, okay, here's the books you have to read.

01:20:18

Because we have so many people on our faculty from various perspectives, that the student couldn't, you know, if a student that's, let's say, a

01:20:27

Reformed Baptist may enroll, and if he's working with a mentor who's Assemblies of God, it wouldn't be right for the

01:20:32

Assemblies of God to say, okay, here are all the texts you're going to read. So what happens even then is that the student, working with the mentor, by the way, he selects his own mentor, too.

01:20:40

He selects his own mentor, and then the mentor helps the student determine what books are going to best meet his need in his theological persuasion.

01:20:47

So the point here, let me wrap this up, is that there's a great flexibility in the program. The student designs the curriculum with the mentor's oversight, and then the student works together with the mentor to design each class to determine what's going to be done for that class.

01:21:01

And so the flexibility is really, really good in that aspect. And the other thing that strikes me about CES and the approach that you take, it has to do with, if you will, the overhead of the school and the kind of cost factor that a student faces in coming to your school as opposed to going to a university.

01:21:25

It strikes me that, I mean, when we were, as an organization, looking at where James White was going to pursue that doctorate, the amount of money that it would have taken to attend

01:21:40

ASU, just in tuition alone, was enormous. And what strikes me is that the vast majority of people looking for Christian education who will eventually, like Colin, wind up in a pulpit, are not going to be making big dollars.

01:21:58

Right. There are a lot of people who go off to seminary and spend $60 ,000 through all the time that they spent there, the student loans and so on, to go out and get a pastoral job that pays them $24 ,000 a year.

01:22:13

The reason why our tuition is lower is because we don't have a multi -mega library.

01:22:20

We're not accredited. We don't have to pay those accredited prices. So we can pass on all that reduction to the students.

01:22:26

Our undergraduate study program is $60 per credit hour. The master's is $70. The doctoral is only $85 per credit.

01:22:34

Now, at a lot of accredited schools offering the same degrees, the credits are three, four, and five times that much.

01:22:41

Wow. And I think that's a tremendous point for CES here.

01:22:49

And well, I'm actually running out of material here. We blew through that NOVAC stuff real quick.

01:22:58

I do want to mention one more time, I want to talk about your book. And folks,

01:23:05

I think the biggest value, and this is the major reason why Alpha and Omega Ministries has chosen to offer

01:23:11

Dr. Walston's book, is that folks come to our website looking for substance, number one.

01:23:19

And as they look through the information that is there, as they look through the information that we offer, oftentimes a lot of them turn to us and say, you know, where should

01:23:28

I get my education? I've just completed these degrees. I want to pursue this, et cetera. And they want to be able to, well, they're facing difficult decisions.

01:23:37

And those decisions have to do with where they're going to go next and how they're going to attain that education that they're looking for and how in the world are they going to afford it.

01:23:49

All those things come into that decision -making process. And what

01:23:54

I found most refreshing about your book was it wasn't a showcase of CES, as much as what its point was, is giving the student looking for the next place of where they're going to go.

01:24:11

If they're going to get into distance learning, they're going to have some tangible ways in which to measure the school that they're talking to.

01:24:19

Well, there's a couple things that are keynote of the book. Number one is I talk about how do you judge a non -accredited distance learning school.

01:24:26

That's one. Number two, there's several chapters dedicated to the whole concept of accreditation and global accreditation, if you were looking at schools outside the

01:24:33

United States. And then the third thing, of course, there's a lot more, but these are probably the three big things, is that I list over 200 schools that offer their programs through non -traditional methods, and I identify which ones are lying about their accreditation, which ones are accredited, and which ones are not accredited, but yet good schools.

01:24:51

Yeah, excellent, excellent. Well, I tell you what, we're going to go ahead and wrap up the program today, and I just want you to know how much

01:24:59

I've appreciated having you as my guest, and we're going to use this file,

01:25:04

I think, to the edification of the body of Christ, and that's what it's all about. And we really appreciate your participation here on The Dividing Line.

01:25:13

All right, and thank you. Go ahead and let

01:25:18

Dr. Walston go as I go ahead and wrap up the show here.

01:25:26

And what's really important is that I actually pick the right clothes file. Folks, I want to thank you for listening to The Dividing Line.

01:25:33

We're going to try to get Sean Hawn on next week on the program. I don't know what his topic is going to be, but he's gearing up and hopefully can get a gentleman that we haven't seen in here for a while, and that's

01:25:46

Mr. Mike Munoz in to assist him. And we look forward to next week's Dividing Line. If they can't make it, we're going to air a debate on homosexuality with Dr.

01:25:55

James White that aired two weeks ago in New York. Thank you for listening in today, and God bless.

01:26:26

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 -4602, or write us at PO Box 37106,

01:26:37

Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. You can also find us on the World Wide Web at aomin .org,

01:26:43

that's A -O -M -I -N -dot -O -R -G, where you'll find a complete listing of James White's books, tapes, debates, and tracks.