Bear & Anti-Creationist Site

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Guest, Oct 15, 2002.

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  1. Guest

    Guest Guest

    This was kind of interesting. Several of the folks have DL degrees and Dr. Bear is referred to frequently and one reference is made to 'Steve's Name it and Frame It'.

    http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/credentials.html

    One of the things these sites make me realize is how often little it understood about DL. A negative reference is made to the U of Sarasota and the fact that even though it is accredited it only requires six weeks on campus. There is a FARMS site (Mormon) that tries to fry some anti Mormons and their credentials. The author of the FARMS site obviously did not understand accreditation and was clueless about how many Universities offer even 100% DL at the graduate level.

    That having been said on the anti Creationist site it is obvious there are some possibly questionable schools. Columbia Pacific U also gets referred to as a mill on the site.

    North
     
  2. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    North,

    I would be most appreciative if you would supply the URL for the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) site that you mentioned. I have recently subscribed to the FARMS site and have not been able to locate the page that you mention. I would like to be able to critique/correct it myself and contact the author.

    While it is certainly true that Mormons (and many others) whose academic experience is totally within the RA realm may not have a grasp on the latest developments in DL, it is also true that the deceptive claims that anti-Mormons have made about their own (often shabby or non-existent) academic credentials over the years might make an interesting thread on Degreeinfo. There are some real "timebombs" there.

    Tony Pina
    College of Education
    California State University, San Bernardino

    P.S. By the way, North, in answer to the obvious question: Yes, I am L.D.S. (Mormon) and have a great deal of respect for the thoughful and substantive postings that I have read from you.
     
  3. Guest

    Guest Guest

    Re: Re: Bear & Anti-Creationist Site

    Tony,

    I will try and locate the article. I did contact FARMS and was ignored. I pointed out some errors in the article as well as explaining accreditation as far as TRACS, what a DMIN is, and the fact that DL has progressed and there are graduate schools with 100% DL including the RA Tour at the PhD level & candidate NCU. You might try searching for Ankerberg as he was one of the folks mentioned.

    My guess is that the person who wrote the article was ignorant of education systems beyond BYU (who do offer undergraduate degrees via DL) and other non DL RA programs. The other issue is that the author undoubtedly was less interested in complete facts than twisting a little with hyperbole to discredit critics with whom he was obviously annoyed.

    There is unfortunately a lot of name calling with regard to Mormonism by evangelical Christians. I have appreciated reading apologetics sites such as Jeff Lindsay's and England's. They offer thought provoking philosophical and theoretical explanations with regard to Mormon theology/archeology, etc. Lindsay even quotes early church fathers and others as does England to support Mormon theological perspectives. I was quite annoyed in our church at the smuggness of garden variety Christians who think that Mormon theology is simplistic and easily defeated. It is a miscalculation. At one point I brought up one of Lindsay's points with regard to the Hebrew pluralistic references to gods and to be frank the pastor was not really succesful in explaining it other than to say that we have just always affirmed it to be this way. My own feeling is that shrill critics of the LDS make us (evangelical Christians) look a little less Christian. James White (a debater of the Mormon church) tried to point this out to a group of uneducated Chrsitians who were yelling outside a Mormon convention. According to White's article they did not understand his point and went back to yelling. It became evident to White that they did not even understand LDS theology. Believe it or not White says he had an LDS at the convention who thanked him for at least trying to understand.

    Hanegraaff is correct that it is amusing to find Christians so firmly against doctrines of the LDS and yet when the same doctrines are espoused by Word of Faith folks like Kenneth Copeland they buy into it. I think this is because there is no intellectual discernment among many pew Christians.

    As a side note, BYU ought to get into developing DL graduate programs with their success in undergraduate.

    North
     
  4. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    North,

    Graduate DL degrees from BYU are very likely in the not-too-distant future. BYU-Idaho (formerly Ricks College) requres all students to complete at least one online class as a condition of graduation. It will be interesting to see whether the Utah campus follows suit.

    Ironically enough, I am currently assisiting in the development of an online masters degree program for La Sierra University (afiliated with the Seventh-Day Adventists), where I am a doctoral candidate.

    I think that I may know the author that might have written the article you cite--if he is the one who edits the Review of Books. His doctorate is in Middle Eastern Studies from UCLA and I'm unsure how much exposure that he has had with DL schools (probably little, if any).

    To put things into perspective: below are a couple of brief examples why some Mormons (probably including "our author")have red flags about the non-RA credentials of some of their critics:

    Dee Jay Nelson - Made a substantial living as an anti-Mormon lecturer at evangelical churches. Billed as a world famous egyptologist until is was revealed that he was actualy a high school dropout who purchased his B.A. and Ph.D. for $150 and $250, respectively, complete with "transcripts," from Pacific Northwestern University, a Washington diploma mill.

    Walter Martin - Who, in his publications, radio shows and public speaking engagements, declared that Shelton College, where he received his BA and BRE, was a fully accredited school (which it wasn't) and that California Western University (now Cal Coast) was not a correspondence school (which, in 1976, it was) and was also fully accredited (which, as we all know, it wasn't and still isn't). In his books, he also claimed degrees from his high school and a seminary that he attended for one summer session. Martin, however, did have an accredited masters degree (Shelton College told NYU at the time that it was a candidate for accreditation, which it wasn't).

    Charles Crane - Identified in a popular (and profitable) anti-Mormon movie as an "expert in Mormon archeology" (there is no such field). He never worked on an archeological dig, but had "read extensively" about the subject. His doctorate was from an unaccredited seminary that was accredited by TRACS several years later.

    Regarding Ankerberg: I have read his and Weldon's little "expose" (needs accent mark) on my church. Frankly, their research was so embarassingly poor that even a doctorate from Harvard couldn't save it.

    James White is a different story entirely. White has a masters from an excellent school (Fuller Seminary) and has some expertise in ancient languages that his predecessors lacked.

    One final note (I know that this post is long enough, but it is nice to talk about something other than Ph.D. versus Ed.D.):

    I have experienced first hand the "name calling" and "smuggness" that you mentioned. Although it is true that a few LDS individuals set up apologetics websites and there are book reviews where anti-Mormons are criticized, I find it significant that there is never an organized picket of new Southern Baptist chapels by Mormons, nor are there any LDS Church-sponsored/financed anti-Foursquare Gospel "expose" films (what is the ACSII code for the accented "e"?). Desert Book does not feature any publications with names like "Evangelicals Exposed!" or "What's With Those 'Born-Agains?'"

    Let's see...is that enough to get me bumped off the "Distance Learning Discussions" and onto the "Off-Topic"? Seriously though, it is nice to have a serious non-flaming exchange about this subject with an obviously intelligent person.

    Tony
    College of Education
    California State University, San Bernardino
     
  5. Bill Grover

    Bill Grover New Member

    Re: Re: Bear & Anti-Creationist Site

    ==============================

    Tony there is a thread somewhere here on James White that provides the location of a lengthy dialogue between that apologist and a Mormon who is exposing White's unaccredited doc
     
  6. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Re: Re: Re: Bear & Anti-Creationist Site

    Bill,

    Thank you, Bill. I have not seen the thread on Degreeinfo, but I have seen excerpts from it on James White's website and the whole thing on another one called "Worst of the anti-Mormon Web." White seemed to be unwilling to answer a number of questions about his doctorate, such as whether he had to defend his dissertation before a panel of professors (a standard practice), why his dissertation is unavailable via Dissertation Abstracts, who, besides CES President Rick Walston served on his committee and who, besides Dr. Walston, taught any of his courses.

    Tony
     
  7. Nosborne

    Nosborne New Member

    In Torah one of the major names of God does take a plural form but the grammer makes it very clear that it is a name and not a description. B'reshit bara elohim h'shmayim v' h'aretz". "Elohim" is a plural form but "bara" is third person singular masculine, perfect tense.

    "Elohim", by the way, is a more or less common Talmud and Torah term for "Judges" in the earthly sense.

    To me, a more interesting argument comes from those who point out that there is no indefinite article in Hebrew. Thus, so they say, the translation should be "In the beginning, a god created heaven and earth."

    This stuffy pedantry is brought to you by:

    Nosborne, JD
     
  8. levicoff

    levicoff Guest

    Quite frankly, I have often wondered about the academic credentials, if any, held by Hank Hanegraaff. Walter martin, at least, had an academic background - despite the whacked-out shadiness of Shelton College, it was once a demanding academic program (before Carl McIntyre ran it into the ground).

    I, too, have been amused by the shabby credentials of Martin, White, et al. From a theological perspective, I lean toward the anti-Mormons' side - Martin, especially, was a knockout apologist and one of the funniest and sharpest debaters ever. But, as the Mormons rightfully note, he and White put their feet in their own mouths by way of their bogus credentials (Martin from California Western, White from Columbia Evangelical).

    An anti-White site actually has photographs of Columbia Evangelical Seminary (Walston's degree mill) - you'll find them at
    this link. I've never heard White speak or read any of his work (compared with Martin, White was always a minor-leaguer), but would certainly join with my LDS colleagues in not addressing him as Doctor.

    As for Martin, while I agreed with him regarding the LDS Church, I had to laugh my proverbial ass off when he was so effectively exposed by LDS apologists Robert and Rosemary Brown in their book series They Lie In Wait to Deceive - one of the most brilliant pieces of investigative journalism I have ever seen.

    As for Hanegraaff, the ony thing I could ever see in him was that he was an effective fundairser who, when he took over CRI (the Christian Research Institute, formerly led by Martin), knew squat about apologetics. Incidentally, I had the opportunity to meet Hanegraaff several years ago - I thought he was a putz.
     
  9. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Steve,

    There appears to be quite a bit of bad blood between Hanegraaf and Martin's surviving family. Walter Martin's daughter maintains a website in his honor and slams Hanegraaf for apparetnly taking the CRI in a differnent direction than Martin.

    Personally, I don't care one whit about Martin's Cal Western (aka Cal Coast) doctorate. Plenty of religious folks get their degrees at unaccredited schools, so they can be addressed as "doctor". My problem with Martin has always been twofold:

    1) He was dishonest about his degrees and his background.

    He repeatedly claimed that his unaccredited degrees were, in fact, accredited. When publicly confronted with the fact that his doctorate was from a correspondence school, the story was changed that he did all of his doctoral coursework at NYU and only did his dissertation at Cal Western. The problem was that the few post masters courses that he took at NYU were in education, not in the "comparative religion" doctorate that he claimed from Cal Western.

    He also claimed "degrees" from Stony Brook School, Adelphi University and the new York Biblical Seminary. In fact, Stony Brook was his high school (do you list your high school diploma as a "degree" on your resume? I attended Arizona State University part-time for three years and completed 27 units of doctoral work. Since I interruptd my studies and later transferred to a different university, I do not claim a degree from ASU. Yet, Martin only took a few summer courses at Adelphi and the Bibilical Seminary and claimed degrees from both. He also lied about being a descendent of Brigham Young (attempting to falsify your genalogy in front of the LDS Church is certainly not a brillian thing to do).

    Martin later co-founded the unaccredited Simon Greenleaf School of Law so that he could award himself the title of "Full Professor of Comparative Religion" (no passing through the ranks of Assistance or Associate Professor for him--he starts right at the top). Incidentally, In 1998 (9 years after Martin's death) Simon Greenleaf was later acquired by the accredited Trinity International University and now functions as its Law School and California Campus.

    2) Martin may well have been a "knockout apologist" for Christianity (and certainly was a gifted and amusing speaker). He was good at debates and debated some noted athiests. However, judging by his printed work in "Kingdom of the Cults," "The Maze of Mormonism" and his little "Mormonism" pamphlet, he was (to use US News & World Report terminology) a "fifth tier" researcher. His books on "Mormonism" are so poorly researched and executed that one wonders why this man is so revered. Of course, Dee Jay Nelson was also revered (and well-financed) until his degree mill credentials were exposed.

    How "fitting" that these phony degrees were exposed by the Browns, who are not academics, but are dress shop owners (pun intended).

    Thanks for keeping this fun discussion going. It provides a nice little break from my dissertation.

    Tony
     
  10. Bill Grover

    Bill Grover New Member

    ====================================

    Nosborne, I bet with a little coaching you could become one of the degreeinfo theologians.

    =====================================
     
  11. Howard

    Howard New Member

    It always seemed to me that those people who were most effective were those who portrayed their faith in a positive manner and left others to do the same. I cannot imagine preparing a sermon that slammed another religion....one that speaks of love and service always seems more appropriate.
    IMHO.

    The Rev. Dr. Howard L. Rodgers
     
  12. Nosborne

    Nosborne New Member

    Jews don't do theology.

    Nosborne, JD
     
  13. levicoff

    levicoff Guest

    It is a fun dicsussion. But actually, Tony, I broght all of these facts out (attributing the Browns, as appropriate) in my book Name It & Frame It.

    Remember, I attended Simon Greenleaf for a semester in its early years when they held associate status with WASC. But SGSL was smart enough to dump Martin because of his Cal Western degree. The reason they did not move on to achieve candidacy with WASC was not Martin, but the administrative ineptitude and allegations that had arisen about his co-founder, John Warwick Montgomery, who had much stronger credentials and was always a more credible apologist. (Montgomery went on to become the so-called V.P. of European Operations for Trinity - the degree mill in Newburgh, Indiana. I also discussed his illustrious history i NIFI.)

    Having visited California Coast University's illustrious "campus" in Santa Ana, incidentally, I can tell you one piece of research that even the Browns missed: California Western (which changed its name to Cal Coast after being successfully sued by the California Western School of Law) was never authorized to award degrees in comparative religion in the first place. Thus, Martin was successfully tripped up by his own ego, which is not uncommon in even the field of religion.

    By the way, you're going to hell.

    (Sorry, couldn't resist. This is where one of those toothy smilies would appear if the board ever got the graphics fixed. I actually have nothing against Mormons - in fact, some of them are actually hot looking. Ah, well, the humor probably comes from hanging out with too many jack-Mormons* over the years.)
    ___________________________

    * Jack-Mormon is an inside LDS term, similar to, say, a twice-a-year Catholic who only goes to church on Christmas and Easter.
     
  14. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Dr. Rodgers,

    I have been blessed with the opportunity to interact with scholars of various faiths and am now pursuing my doctorate at a church afiliated university that is not of my faith. My experience has been that the greater one's level of education, the more likely that he or she will treat others' religious beliefs with respect. This has also proven true in my interactions with the numerous educated folks on the Degreeinfo forum.

    Tony
     
  15. Bill Grover

    Bill Grover New Member

    ========================
    You're too modest;you just did!
     
  16. Bill Grover

    Bill Grover New Member

    ========================

    Thankyou Tony (hee, hee)
     
  17. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Steve,

    I did not know that you had gone to Greenleaf. I obviously need to buy your book (Where can I get it?) and get up to speed on this fascinating stuff! I saw a copy of the original petition for Cal Western and it did not mention any kind of religion or philosophy degree, let alone "comparative religion" which, by Martin's definition, consists of the following basic methology:

    1. Make a list of points where your religion differs from mine
    2. Classify those points as "characteristics of non-Christian cults"
    3. Apply those characteristic back to my religion

    and (drum roll please)...........

    4. You are stunned (saddened, dismayed, disappointed, etc.) to discover that my religion bears all of the characteristics of a non-Christian cult
    5.You can now form an anti-cult ministry/publishing house to distribute your "scholarly" findings.

    As for my going to hell, well Steve, as highly as I regard your opinion, I'll have to leave that one up to Jesus. He even trumps your RA Ph.D. (stick one of those non-working smile graphics on this one, too) Besides, we LDS are such a "peculiar people" that we leave ourselves open to all kinds of good-natured ribbing (we just don't care for the bad-natured stuff).

    All the best!

    Tony
    O.D. (summa cum nada) Melodyland School of theology
    Duh.D (ad nauseum) Christian Research Insitute
    Q.T. (honorus financium) California Western University
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 16, 2002
  18. Christopher Green

    Christopher Green New Member

    for Nosborne

    Hey Nosborne...

    I just wanted to put in my $.02 on the exegesis of Gen. 1:1. Let me just say first that it delights me to see such a supposedly archaic and irrelevant text discussed on degreeinfo.

    If you say that "a god created the heavens and the earth" you may make a better point after explaining the merism "heavens and earth."

    In other words, Gen. 1:1 resists implying a pre-existing pantheon of gods because the creation is pictured to be all-inclusive by the figure of speech "ha-shemayim ve et ha aretz." Because the merism, as all merisms do, implies "all," the created object of "bara" means "everything." So, given that the object of the creation narrated in Genesis 1 is "everything," or "all things," how can a pantheon which includes "a god" in its midst preexist the subject of the action?

    Do I take the merism too far? When we speak our wedding vows we say "for better or for worse" meaning "all the time" and not "most of the time" or even "some of the time." So it's really up to you, but I've never considered this option of Gen. 1:1 saying "a god" because of this textual fact.

    These things, of course, are always open to discussion. If you want, shoot me an email and we can talk about it that way

    Chris
     
  19. levicoff

    levicoff Guest

    Tony, you have obviously done your research well.

    (For the initiated, Melodyland School of Theology is a charismatic institution in Anaheim at which Walter Martin taught prior to joining up with John Warwick Montgomery to establish the then-Simon Greenleaf School of Law.)

    I, however, could never take seriously a school called melodyland, regardless of how much credibility they appeared to have. The name itself is simply a joke (although, I'm sure, Charismatics would not have thought so).

    Oh, note to Christopher . . . Are we not getting a bit off topic? If anything, it would be more relevant to this thread to focus on the "a god" concept of John 1:1 instead of Genesis 1:1. At least we could then make fun of Jehovah's Witnesses.
     
  20. Guest

    Guest Guest

    I think the web site also expresses the feeling that Hank took over CRI without the Martin family's inclusion in the decision. If I remember correctly it sounded like a coup.

    There are also allegations that Hank has plagiarized portions of his writings, specifically from Dr. D. James Kennedy's Evangelism Explosion. Hank denies it. Now, Hank attacked Kennedy over Kennedy's *Gospel in the Stars*. Kennedy says he was basically called a heretic by Hank.

    In answer to Steve, as far as I know Hank has no credentials (High School diploma). I believe he has an honorary doctorate. He does a quite credible job for someone without formal theological education. Also, apparently (according the the anti Hank site) he makes a very good living.

    North
     

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