Farrell Till wrote:
>
> TILL
> The truth is that I contacted Warren about debating before he experienced
> his health problems. I contacted a long list of names, whom only the
> Church-of-Christ preachers on the list would recognize, and I'm sure Warren
> was the first. If not the first, he was certainly at the top of the list.
> For whatever reason, he never replied. . Long after I sent my debate
> proposal to Warren, I would see him listed as a speaker at most of the
> prestigious Church-of-Christ lectureships. Apparently, his health wasn't
> interfering with these speaking engagements. At the time, he was editor of
> *The Spiritual Sword,* and he refused to accept my check for a subscription
> to it. His successor Alan Highers has continued to refuse my subscription
> checks Certainly, I wasn't hiding in the dark. At that time, I sent debate
> proposals to such notables as Guy N. Woods, George DeHoff, Wayne Jackson,
> and Roy Deaver. Any Church-of-Christ preacher on this list should know that
> these were not the actions of an atheist who was "sitting in the darkness
> keeping his mouth shut."
>
> McDONALD
> And when was this that you contacted brother Warren? Brother Warren
> had his first heart attack in my second year of preaching school
> (1981). Are you saying that you contacted him prior to that event?
> Let me see the proof of your statement. I know when brother Warren
> had his first attack because we were in chapel when it was announced
> to the school that he had been taken to the hospital the night
> before.
>
> TILL
> I don't intend to respond in detail to everything that McDonald said in this
> posting, because most of it would be understood only by those who have some
> familiarity with the Church of Christ and its internal politics. That would
> probably be no more than one or two others on the list besides Jerry and me.
> I suspect that what I do say will be incredibly boring to those who are not
> informed enough in Church-of-Christ activities to follow my points.
> However, McDonald has made some assertions that are flat-out wrong, so I
> feel a need to respond to them.
>
> No, I did not contact Warren prior to 1981. My contact was in 1988. At the
> time, I didn't know that Warren had had a heart attack. Nevertheless, he
> had apparently recovered sufficiently to do the lectureship circuit again,
> because I saw him listed on the speaking panels at most of the major
> lectureships. Rather than being just a one-time speaker, as most are at
> lectureships, he was sometimes listed as a keynote speaker each night. If
> his health permitted him to do this with the regularity I remember, I can't
> see why he couldn't have debated, especially since Jerry claims that he was
> actively seeking atheists to debate.
>
McDonald
If you are going to contend that you contact brother Warren before
his health started failing you better find out when his health
started failing. Do you think that being a speaker at a lectureship
is as stressful as being a participant in a debate? One night of a
debate would do more damage to a man in brother Warren's health and a
week of lecturing. You know that.
> McDONALD
> I think (I will have to check the date though) that brother
> Warren gave up his editorship of the Spiritual Sword shortly after
> 1988 (when you were just starting to challenge preachers).
>
> TILL
> Let me refresh your memory. Warren resigned as editor of *The Spiritual
> Sword* in 1989, but apparently he didn't resign for health reasons. He and
> Garland Elkins at that time started a paper called *Power,* which he also
> refused to let me subscribe to.
>
McDonald
As I said it was shortly after 1988. You don't know why he resigned.
He did help start a publication called "Power" but you don't know why
he resigned. For example did "Power" have the workload to it that
"The Spiritual Sword"? Was he the main editor or just the co-editor?
Was Power published on a monthly basis? These are just some of the
questions that you would need to answer before you could say that he
didn't resign as editor of the Spiritual Sword.
> McDONALD
> By that time he had already had at least one heart attack and major by pass
> surgery. So when did you contact brother Warren?
>
> TILL
> See the above. It was in 1988 or possibly the year before, because I have
> found a full disk of correspondence that contains letters that I sent to
> Warren in April 1988. The first of these letters, dated the 28th, refer to
> letters that I had sent to him the "previous" year. I probably have
> somewhere in my files the disk on which the earlier correspondence was
> saved, but I didn't immediately locate it. One of my failings is that I
> don't label disks as specifically as I should. At any rate, the letter of
> April 28, 1989, summarized what the previous correspondence was about, and
> it clearly shows that the earlier correspondence was a debate proposal.
>
> McDONALD
> Where were you in 1980 and the middle part of 81' when he was asking
> atheists to debate him?
>
> TILL
> Haven't you heard me say many times that I was a good little boy, who
> basically kept quiet about my beliefs so that I wouldn't offend anyone's
> religious sensibilities, until the Reagan years when I became concerned
> about an alliance that he seemed to be forming with the Moral Majority. It
> was in the mideighties that I began to speak out and actively challenge
> fundamentalist peachers to defend their positions in public debate. The
> fact that I was not seeking debates in 1980 and 1981 doesn't remove the fact
> that I was doing so later and that Warren was one of the preachers I
> contacted. He was supposed to be the best; that's why I contacted him.
McDonald
No, I don't think I have ever heard you say that. You came out with
your attacks against the church when Dr. Hollar went around
boycotting the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ" according to
your own admission. You did that before you started looking for
preachers in the church to debate you didn't you? Yes, brother
Warren was one of those preachers that you contacted, but you
contacted him a little late. You should have done so in the late
70's and the early 80's before he had his first heart attack. He
had that attack shortly after his debate with Dr. Barnhart. Before
his debate with Dr. Barnhart, Dr. Sagan said that he would debate
anyone over the issue of evolution vs. creation and brother Warren
took the challenge, but Sagan never fulfilled it. After his debate
with Barnhart, he had to start slowing down on all of his work.
>
> McDONALD
> He brags about sending debate proposals to Guy N. Woods, George
> DeHoff, Wayne Jackson, and Roy Deaver. With the exception of Wayne
> Jackson, he sent his debate propositions to men who were up in years,
> who were unable (physically) to debate.
>
> TILL
> That is not true. I contacted Woods, DeHoff, and Deaver because of their
> reputations. I knew nothing about their health at the time. I contacted
> Deaver because I had seen him listed on speaking panels at major
> lectureships, which I again interpreted as having an ability to speak
> publicly in a debating format. Because of my written debate with Jim Laws,
> who was a professor of "logic" at Tennessee Bible College, I secured a copy
> of the 1988 lectureship held there. Roy Deaver had given two lectures, and
> his biographical sketch on page 148 described him as a "debater" in addition
> to other glowing descriptions, so I sent a proposal to him. He never
> answered. In 1991, I debated his son Mac at Southwest Texas State
> University in San Marcos, and Roy Deaver served as Mac's moderator. He
> didn't appear to be in poor health to me.
>
> Anyway, your accusations have sent me looking through past correspondence
> that I have filed. I can show you letters from Bobby Liddell, Wayne Burger,
> Dave Miller, Rober Taylor, J. A. McNutt, Curtis Cates, T. Pierce Brown, Alan
> Highers, Roy Lanier, Gus Eoff, Garland Elkins, and others in addition to
> those whom I actually debated, such as Mac Deaver, Buster Dobbs, and Jerry
> Moffitt. Most of these letters were written in response to the sting
> operation I conducted against those who had refused legitimate challenges
> sent in my own name. Although they didn't want to debate biblical
> inerrancy, when they thought that the challenge was coming from a
> "denominationalists" who wanted to debate doctrinal matters. They jumped at
> the chance. Cates, however, had figured out that the challenge was a hoax
> and wrote to tell me so.
McDonald
Yes, you also challenged these other preachers. I was merely showing
that Warren was not afraid to debate you, but his health was not
good. Brother Woods was in bad health at the time. He had his last
debate in '84. However, you act as if you can't find anyone to
debate you. We have debated you. I have debated you twice, and
others have debated you. For you to think that everyone you
challenge to debate is going to debate you is absurd. There are
several atheists that I have challenged to debate and can't get them
to. Does that mean that they are afraid of me?
> The correspondence disk that I found shows that I sent letters to many
> others, such as Roger Jackson, Johnny Ramsey, Terry Vance, and many others,
> who were not as well known. Altogether there are 222 letters on this disk,
> and many of the names were taken from lectureship panels and articles
> published in different Church-of-Christ papers. There was no effort on my
> part to write only to "old men" who were in poor health. When Jerry says
> that I did, he is simply shooting from the hip as he does so often.
>
> I even wrote to Josh McDowell, Gleason Archer, and Jerry Falwell. Falwell
> was the one who put me in contact with Norman Geisler, who was associated
> with Liberty University at the time. Does this sound as if I were writing
> only to old men who would not have been able to represent their positions
> adequately? I was actually trying to do the opposite of what Jerry charges.
> Rather than seeking opponents whom I thought would be unable to make decent
> defenses of their positions, I was actually seeking out those who were
> supposed to be the best qualified. Can I help it if most Church-of-Christ
> preachers are cowards when it comes to defending their biblical inerrancy claim?
>
> Farrell Till
> Skepticism, Inc.
> jftill@midwest.net
McDonald
I never said that you wrote only to old men to debate you. However,
you did write to men that were not able to debate you because of
health reasons.
In Christ's service,
Jerry D. McDonald
jerrydmcdonald@geocities.com
http://www.angelfire.com/mo/mcdonaldsplace/index.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Delphi/7252/index.html
challenge@ctwok.com