The James White "Controversy"

[PointlessShrew]

I can’t find my previous thread, hence this new topic, so please bear with me. Tonight is the first time since last week that I’ve had time to be online–I do have a life, after all. So, imagine my surprise when I opened my email only to find that my “conversation” with Jimmy White has caused such a tissy-fit. While I was making wine and canning tomatoes, over a hundred people were wanting to know what the heck I was thinking or, conversely, what else I can tell them about my experience.

I also didn’t expect to have so many people sending me more links to White’s blog site, but here’s my (name removed by moderator)ut, for the record:

1. I never said that James White gave me tapes in Salt Lake City–nor did I ever say or imply that they were about Mormonism. The tapes I got of James White’s were obtained during the eight years I lived in Phoenix–after I’d already left the Mormon Church, while I was “church-hopping”. And, yes, some of them I recieved from James White, himself. He can claim that the incident in which he told me I was going to hell is “apocryphal” by smudging my words all he likes–it’s still a fact.
2. Yes, it is true that I moved to Phoenix from Boise on 31 August 1988–two years after I joined the Mormon Church. I was a member of the Phoenix North Singles Ward until summer of 1992 when I severed ties through a letter of disassociation to Salt Lake and was baptised at a Southern Baptist church on Greenway Blvd at I-17 that same summer. During those same years when I still considered myself a “Mormon”, beginning in the autumn of 1988, I attended Cave Creek Assembly of God, Vineyard Fellowship on Dunlap and Phoenix Calvary Chapel along with three different Baptist churches–all on a regular basis. I left Phoenix and moved to the Twin Cities on 17 July 1996 for the specific purpose of being in a less-hostile, more openly Catholic area so that I could figure out where it was I was supposed to be (religion-wise) and why. I returned to the Catholic Church the following year.
3. My affiliation with the aforementioned Protestant churches did, in fact, cause me a great deal of confusion and angst and, as I told Pat Madrid (who is not very happy with my exchange with Mr White) earlier tonight, I am still very angry about the fact that the misinformation and error that I was fed by the “pastors” at those churches during those years as “facts” helped to steal my heritage twice–first through the Mormons, then through the conflicting theologies of the Prots I was exposed to.

[continue to next post]

 

[PointlessShrew]

One of the main reasons I became so angry with the legacy left to me by people like James White and Mark Martin is that the friends I had at the time, who absorbed every word they preached like manna from on High (many of whom were the same people who invited me to their churches to begin with), were the very same people who made my life a living hell during the time I pursued checking the facts behind the claims made by these “pastors” about the Catholic Church, her teachings, her history and her people. Before that experience, I never would have believed how dangerous searching out the truth could be.

It was simply a continuation of what I had already experienced when I discovered through my own personal studies that Mormonism was a cult and subsequently left–I found myself harrassed, slandered, calumniated and villified by people that I considered to be family…and all because I was no longer willing to believe any assertions made about other’s beliefs just because the guy at the pulpit said they were so. People don’t want their beliefs challenged–they don’t want to know that their pastor is not always honest–accidentally or otherwise–when it comes to characterising the faith and history of others. And they will fight to the death to protect those men they admire.

As a result I spent years being falsely accused by people–who called themselves my friends/family and claimed to be such good, Jesus-loving Christians–of sleeping around, trying to kill people, and doing all sorts of crazy things from theft to swindle to stealing cars to jumping off bridges–none of which were even remotely true. The consequence of all this was that I became severely, clinically depressed and suicidal and I came to believe that GOD had simply abandoned me. I checked myself into a hospital only to learn later from the then-associate pastor at Calvary Chapel that people thought I was psychotic and homicidal–all of which was false. In the end I lost all of my closest friends and was treated as sub-human by people whom I dearly loved and respected. My job was threatened, my education disrupted and nearly derailed, and my life torn to shreds. I knew I had to move away from Phoenix or I would literally die by my own hand or someone else’s–and I didn’t want to die. But that’s just how bad it got.

It took several more years after the fact to recover from these experiences and to distance myself from the deep, debilitating pain and shame that they caused. The anger and frustration that I feel today is a result of knowing that I’m not alone in my experience–not by a long shot. I also know–just as a result of that one stupid [private!!!] email to James White–that other people are still having similar experiences to what I went through during my eight years in Phoenix, and for that I am most happy, because it tells me that people are still coming out of the wastes of Protestantism into the Catholic Church for the very same reasons I did–and their emails are a salve to me.

But it seems that more than just a few people are upset with my exchange with James White. What they don’t know is that after that exchange last Tuesday, I went through my book storage to find what I have left of James’ writings and old tapes, and I have already begun drafting a point-by-point written refutation of The Catholic Church According to James R. White–which I intend to have finished before the end of the year. People want to know what Mr White said and wrote that had me looking at the ECF’s and Catholic history and I am more than happy to oblige and provide it all in black and white, it’ll just take me awhile to get it all together.

[continued next post]

 

[PointlessShrew]

In the meanwhile, I’d like to know if we can discuss the very real fallout that results from experiences like mine. We discuss doctrine and history, who is accusing who of ad hominem, etc. But why do we not discuss, much for often, the more difficult ministerial aspects of apologetics?

The entire point of my original email was lost on James White–and others. Rude or not, the fact is that he did derail my faith through his teaching. He did help to very nearly destroy my life via the prejudices and fears he instilled in others. His influence did have a great influence on my life, my walk, my recovery from that horrific chapter in my life.

Why do we not address these things more often? After all, some of us who work in these apostolates deal with these issues every single day–why don’t we address them?

What I want to know is why is it, if what I said to James White is so awful, that I spent my evening responding to emails from people who wanted to share similar experiences that “no else understands”??? Why are we so ill-equipped to deal with the fact that despite the overwhelming evidence, there are people who are paralyzed from acting on Truth to the detriment of themselves and others for fear of what their friends and family might say or do? How on GOD’s green earth can we preach the Gospel and make it stick if we cannot admit that sometimes–very often, in fact–conversioin is a painful, messy process?

All I wanted to convey to James White in my email–which, again, was never intended for publication–was that his misinformation and heresy didn’t keep me on his side of the aisle; in the end it only served to force me to study out what I believed and why for myself more deeply with firm intent to prove it to myself. I never wanted a debate, never wanted a public issue. But I told the truth about my experience and I want to know why half of the apologists I’ve been contacted by think that’s a negative.

 

[PhilVaz]

<< But I told the truth about my experience and I want to know why half of the apologists I’ve been contacted by think that’s a negative. >>

I guess many of them expected you to be the female Dom John Chapman or something. I enjoyed your call to White, some examples of White’s mistakes prepared before the call would have been nice. It’s difficult to just “wing it” with White.

Sorry what you went through. If you need help with your rebuttal manuscript, feel free to use my site.

Phil P

 

[PhilVaz]

Since this potentially will become another long White thread, I’ll get some quick White rebuttals online here. Same old stuff, no need to re-invent the wheel.

Everything White says about St. Athanasius and sola scriptura rebutted
Everything White says about St. Augustine and papacy rebutted
Everything White says about St. Augustine and Eucharist rebutted
Everything White says about the Fathers and Immaculate Conception rebutted
Everything White says about the Fathers and justification rebutted

And for good measure a brief critique of Calvinism

Oh there’s more, also see the original Akin article on White’s ministry

As for purgatory, Armstrong’s page is pretty nice
And the Fathers on purgatory with commentary

Phil P