The following are transports of postings on http://www.channelc.org/ made by Jim Penton and Ros regarding myself and James Caputo respectively. The reason that I did not post directly on Channel C is that Ros and many of her board participants do not like to see anything that resembles Catholic discussion, even if the responses are done respectfully and in a spirit of clarifying a false claim or misunderstanding. I too do not like "Catholic" discussions on Channel C, and have not posted there for 9 months until I recently posted an announcement about Tom Cabeen's interviews on EWTN and with Randy Watters. I did post a brief reply to illustrate one important issue.
I have posted a note on Channel C with a link to this posting on JWD. Again, my goal here is not to preach Catholicism, because I am out of the preaching business, and I have a strong distaste for trying to sell anything, especially religion. Rather, the goal here is to simply and respectfully address a few misunderstandings:
Opening Statement: Jim P. and Ros, I care for you both deeply, and consider you Christian bretheran. I have no intention or illusions of trying to preach anything to you about anthing ... my goal here is to reflect on some of your comments respectfully, outside the Channel C forum, and hopefully improve our relationship. I have included James Caputo's respectful responses because I felt that he makes a good case for a balanced view. He is also my friend and Christian brother.
May 14th Jim Penton stated: "I am sick and tired to the point of vomiting over exchanges on Catholicism. Many of the things written and said about Catholicism are extreme and are nothing but unfair propaganda."
Jim W. Thank you for recognizing the unfair propaganda. This is very balanced position for you to take. This issues also highlights the problem which has created a double standard in any discussions on Channel C. Many are permitted to push anti-Catholic propaganda with no check and balance. Then if someone who is sympathetic to Catholic teaching, and desires to set the record straight makes a reply, such persons are accused of preaching and proselytizing. That is the exact and precise cause of the tension. Using the same standards, one could be as easily offended by the constant drumbeat of proselytizing for Free Bible Student doctrine, or other systems of thought and faith presented on Channel C.
Jim Penton: "There is, however, enough wrong with Catholicism that is not propaganda to make me reject it. I think also that we have been over this road before and I am not anxious to go there again. What happens here is that one or two persons come on trying to proselytize for Catholicism or at least defend it, and others start attacking it. The result is that we have something close to flame wars and are diverted from discussing other, more positive issues."
Jim W: The most recent exchanges have not been between attackers and defenders. Rather, they have been between regular board members and their general concensus of disliking anything Catholic. In my case, I simply posted the reference to Tom Cabeen's upcoming interviews with EWTN and Randy Watters. I did so precisely because many of you are long time friends with Tom, as I am. I made one post to link some who are interested in my commentary on JWD, out of respect for Channel C policy. I made one response to Flatlander to illustrate that the blog he used was using inaccurate quotes. I could have done so with all of the quotes he used, but I wanted to be brief, and make a small point about doing more homework. Rud Perrson supported my one point as far as it went. I made no defense of Catholicism. I do not need or want to defend Catholicism ... I prefer to simply live it in a quiet life.
Jim Penton: "Tom Cabeen has been in contact with me and many others through private contacts. He is willing to express his point of view in a kindly manner, and when I am feeling better I will exchange those views with him in a kindly manner. But I simply refuse to get into discussions on Catholicism here on Channel C. This is not the place for them and is a diversion as Ros has rightly pointed out."
Jim W.: Tom Cabeen makes a very positive presentation of the topic of the Catholic faith. I applaud your willingness to listen to him and do so away from Channel C.
Jim Penton: "Of course it is not up to me to tell people what they should write. I believe too strongly in the principle of freedom of speech and communication to attempt to do that. But if the business of dealing with Catholicism pro and con continues as it has in the past, I will be forced to go somewhere else. It has been and can become a pain in a part of the body that doesn't need to be mentioned here."
Jim W.: This is why I left Channel C last August, as the responses to me were less than respectful, and at times intellectually dishonest, blaming me for some of my sarcasm, but conveniently ignoring the sarcasm and unkind comments to which I was responding in fairness. I decided that the discussions were not reasonable or productive, but rather little more than pent up frustrations and attacks. So, I left, as I do not like to been seen as preaching something I do not intend to preach. I only returned to announce Tom's interviews ... and I think you will agree if you take an honest review of my recent postings.
On May 15th Jim Penton stated to Researcher on Channel C: "I do not remember who all were here, especially whether you were here or not when things became tense in the past. But some time ago, James Caputo and a few others carried on what amounted to a proselytizing campaign for Catholicism on Channel C."
Jim W.: This is the rub Jim P, as James Caputo was not in any way proselytizing. He is a highly skilled debater, and quite intelligent, and well informed on religious history. As such, he frustrated the arguments many presented, and so the "proselytizing" charge became too convenient. The response to Ros below by James Caputo illustrates the problem better than I can, and hopefully will make you feel much better.
Jim Penton: "Eventually, Ros had to step in to put a stop to it because it was disrupting everything. She then asked if we should concentrate on things relating to JWs and ex-JWs, to which we agreed. I do not think she wanted to give a narrow interpretation of that, but she can speak for herself on that matter if she wants to."
Jim W: As board owner, she has the right to eliminate any topic from the board's menu ... as she did with discussions on politics, Democrats, Republicans, Communists, the United States, etc. However, time and again, she permits you to make social commentary on those topics ... which is her perogative, but does invite debate from those who may not agree with the positions you take. Time and again, when someone attacks Catholicism, she lets those posts stand ... and when anyone tries to clarify the points presented, such individuals are accused of proselytizing ... much as the Watchtower Society labels some JWs as Apostates when they disagree on a point. If she has a policy to not discuss certain topics, then she needs to enforce it across the board, and everyone needs to respect that policy.
Jim Penton: "Nonetheless, some of our former JW brethren who have become Catholics seemed bound and determined to continue proselytizing in much the same way that they did when they were Witnesses, and I get more than a few posts off line telling me how distressed some are by this. Evidently, now instead of counting time to report to the Society, it may be that our former JW Catholic Brethren are doing so in order to gain indulgences to cut short their time in purgatory. But whether or not, I do not like to see the topic of Catholicism brought back as a major topic here. Personally, I think it is time to accentuate the positive and stop dealing with what we don’t believe."
Jim W.: This is absolutely untrue Jim. The positive feelings some have in discussing Catholicism is no different than the positive feelings some have about discussing Free Bible Student topics. One lesson learned on Internet discussion boards is that if one does not like a topic, or a poster of said topics, then one can simply ignore them. I can only imagine if Simon on this board attempted to limit topics that people do not like, he would have to ban so many issues, that the board would be a blank page. Your comment about Catholics counting time may have been intended as some kind of humor conective to JWs, but it falls flat because Catholics do no such thing. Catholics by and large do not preach their faith, they live it. There is no cutting short purgatory time or indulgences granted in any manner you might think, and your comment reflects unfamiliarity with Catholic teaching on an intimate level. The discussion of these two topics needs more treatment than I can give here and now. As for your remark about positivity, any topic can be positive if the people behind those discussions exhibit positivity ... to paraphrase a popular slogan, "it is not the topics that kill people, it is people who kill people."
Jim Penton: Jim Whitney, when he was last here, said he was still not a Catholic, but he was certainly defending the Roman Church. Now it seems he must have returned to that organization. If so, I wish him well, but please, please, I simply don’t want to deal with that subject or that church here. So I reaffirm what I said in my earlier post. However, you and others are free do as you choose.
Jim W.: First, I never got the chance to defend the Roman Catholic Church. And you cannot find any example of such defense. Also, as I told Ros, I have no interest in defending the Catholic Church, as she can defend herself ... there are far better people like G.K. Chesterton, Tom Cabeen, and others who do a much better job than I could. What did happen is that Researcher begged with Ros for the chance to have at me, and she granted it against her own policy. He attacked me with issues regarding Constantine. He attacked the doctrine to worship on Sunday as being created by Constantine ... this is a typical Adventist argument ... and I simply pointed out historical fact from 200 years earlier that Christians were already worshipping on Sunday. He responded with more quotes about Constantine, and used large bold red letters as though that helps prove his point. I then left the board.
As for my faith, what I stated on Channel C back in August 2007 is that I had "reconciled" with the Catholic Church in June 2006 just as Tom Cabeen became Catholic. However, I have yet to join any Cahtolic Church. Catholics can be Catholic without joining a Catholic Church. Ros suggested that I did it this way to avoid the possibility of excommunication ... but this is where she, and many, fail to understand Catholic teaching. Excommunication is not done by the Church ... rather when a Catholic commits a mortal sin, such as adultery, then one does not take "communion, (the Eucharist)" until one has reconciled with God ... and thus is ex-communion-ized only by one's own private reflection and respect for Christ ... there is no shunning, no public shame, no kicking one out of the Church, and one can rectify this and take communion again right away after one has reconciled with God for the sin of adultery, or murder, or theft, or lying, or drunkeness, or the other works of the flesh mentioned by St. Paul to the Galatians.
The reason that I have not formally joined my local Parish where I attend Mass is a mystery to me, but it is simply not on my urgent list.
If you read this Jim P. thank you, and may God bless you.
The following is James Caputo's response to Ros' comments made to Jim Penton on Channel C on May 15th. The reason that James does not post them on Channel C is that Ros deleted his account ... Though banned from her board, she chose to present an old email by James C. without his being able to defend himself ... I am posting this as a favoir to my friend James as he deserves to be heard in a sense of fairness. I will "try" to limit my own comments to simple narrative. I consider Ros a friend and have known her for about 15 years. She was there on the phone when I ordered my first copy of "In Search of Christian Freedom" ... The quotes Ros made of James Caputo in her post to Jim Penton on the 15th of May were taken from an email she says occured about 5 years ago ... James says the email had to happen before 8 years ago when he bacame a Cantor in the Catholic Church. However, this is not critical.
James C: I would love to be able to speak to Ros's publication of my email in that I believe she and the others labor under a misconception of my present beliefs.
Ros: "I don't normally do this, but back in the early turn of the millenium, I hosted an email list called "Beacon Room". Some of you here participated in that forum. Like Channel C, I questered people about their religious perspective before I brought them into our discussion group. At that time, there was a website called "Disfellowshipped.com" that impressed me. It was hosted by an exWitness fellow named James Caputo. I emailed him and asked about his Christian perspective with the idea of inviting him to partipate in the "Beacon Room". He replied:"
Ros quoting James C older email: "I'm glad to hear that shunning is your big issue with the Watchtower in that I would define that issue as the raison d'etre of disfellowshipped.com. The idea that one's divergent theology merits an absolute barring of that individual from general association or worse yet the withholding of natural affection or familial affection disturbs me greatly.<<
James C today: I have not changed my view on this matter.
Ros quoting James C older email: "It seems to me that historically such a notion was absent in Christianity until about the 4th century when the Nicene debate started to rage."
James C today: My understanding of how the Church established her doctrines and praxis (including that of the New Testament corpus) was limited at the time. As such, I had not even come to grips yet with how to justify my faith in the New Testament short of having some faith in the Church and believing her to have a binding authority.
Ros quoting James C older email: "My religious view since leaving the Watchtower Society is Christian. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that his death is a propitiatory sacrifice. Studying the history of Christianity and scripture has led me to the conclusion that the body of Christ is found interspersed throughout the world field of Christian fellowships."
James C. today: This is still my view and the teaching of the Catholic Church.
Ros quoting James C older email: "Therefore, I'm not particularly fastidious about "where" I worship as much as I'm concerned with the "spirit" of the group of Christians with whom I worship."
James C. today: This view has changed given the distinctions mentioned above in re: of scripture itself and the ecclesial dimension of the Church's epistemology.
Ros quoting James C older email: "I would echo and concur with the words of a young Charles Taze Russell when he said the following: "We are in fellowship with all Christians in whom we can recognize the spirit of Christ, and especially those who recognize the Bible as the only standard." (WT 1882, Q&A)"
James C. today: See above. The bible cannot logically be the "only standard" I came to learn, given that the Church preceeds her and determines her canon via her Sacred Tradition.
Ros quoting James C older email: "I've noticed a disconcerting similarity to JWs in some ex-JWs – one which insists on their view of doctrine as the only possible right understanding. This is something for which I have little patience or heart."
James C. today: And yes, I was an inconsistent relativist after leaving the Watchtower. This is not something about which I'm proud. I attribute it to the spirit of the age. When I came of age philosophically, however, I abandoned that sophomoric and limp-wristed approach to divine truth.
Ros quoting James C older email: "I guess I would define my understanding of Christianity in much simpler terms than many Christians. I see it as accepting that there is a God whose character is upright and good. And that this God can be known best through his Son, Jesus."
Ros' comment about James email: How he changed over the next 5 years or so.
James C. today: Indeed! But it's been much longer than five years ago. I've been a baptized Catholic for four years. And yes I thank God that it has changed from a barebones relativistic mode of faith ensconced in some amorphous/fictitious and invisible Church to a philosophically and historically grounded faith that is the shared patrimony of Christians for 2,000 years. I've left my philosophical playpen and rejected the solipsistic world of ex-JWs and have instead been incorporated into the Church founded by Christ. Of this I'm not ashamed. Others greater than me have followed the same course.
I agree that Ros' publishing my private correspondence on a forum from which I'm banned is in poor taste. It doesn't irk me so much, however, in that I see it as a sign of weakness. I've invited her and Penton to dialogue on several occasions and they have always refused. That is not the behavior of people who are cock-sure of their beliefs.
What would have made for an interesting post is if Ros had posed questions regarding what made me change my mind on certain views, how my paradigm had changed.
The fact that I changed my mind in certain respects shouldn't stun anyone. I'm human, after all - a thinking human similar to St. Paul, Augustine, John Henry Newman, Chesterton and many other more and less noble men than myself.
What I find disconcertingly absent in Ros is the desire to learn the reasons that acted as a catalyst to my conversion and the willingness to let me express them without fear that my spiritual journey will be deleterious to her forum and the spiritual health of its participants. Such a discussion is off limits, though. It's considered preaching and outside the purpose of the Channel C mission statement.
Furthermore, I could not have possibly written that email just five years ago given that on her own board a search under "apostolic succession" demonstrates that I was preaching the Catholic faith in July of 2003.
Ros once did engage me in a very hesitant fashion. Here are a few links of an exchange between Ros and me and decide for themselves in which direction the evidence points as it relates to the topics treated in that brief dialogue. Comboxes will permit viewers to comment should they feel the need to do so.
http://studiositas.blogspot.com/2007/02/channel-c-forum-invisible-tower-of.html
http://studiositas.blogspot.com/2007/02/null-ecclesia-other-stumbling-blocks.html
http://studiositas.blogspot.com/2007/02/international-forum-on-square-circles.html
http://studiositas.blogspot.com/2007/02/absence-of-qualification-leads-to.html
To close this post off, I tought the following exchange between Ros and James ... undated ... demonstrates the point:
Ros - "That is why I made it a rule that preaching and proselytizing should not be permitted on my forum."
James C. - "I'm not sure I understand your terms. When you argue that you know for a certainty that there is no hell, how is that not preaching? What if I wrote multiple posts on my certainty of the existence of purgatory and furnished support of my belief via the scriptures and the patristic evidence? Would I be preaching? I believe that you honestly have a blind spot to this glaring double standard. That is to say, when you advance your views, you don't see that as preaching. But when a Catholic follows the same apologetic course in re: of his beliefs, that smacks of preaching in your eyes. Furthermore, how is the perpetual advancement (or unquestioned assumption) of a null ecclesia Christianity not proselytizing? I'd argue that Raymond Franz has preached this form of Christianity via his book _ In Search of Christian Freedom _ and that he has infected an entire generation of former Jehovah's Witnesses as a result. Null ecclesia or an invisible Church theory is every bit as much an ecclesiological position as apostolic succession. It's just that one is visible and historical and the other is solely conceptual. Again, when you advance this ecclesiology, you see it as neutral. But when I wax historical on apostolic succession of the ancient Church, that rubs you as being peculiarly denominational. This is a double standard to which you are sincerely blinded." END QUOTE
James C reflecting on this exchnage: I trust one need not be Plato to see the veracity of my argument and the double standard she unwittingly holds.
Jim W.: James made it clear that he still accepts Christians dispersed throughout the world in various denominations and situations ... Catholics in this regard are most accepting of non-Catholic bretheran ... hence the name Catholic meaning Universal. Pope Benedict in his recent visit to the USA made nearly the same point. So, Catholics like James Caputo, Tom Cabeen, Jeff Schwehm, and many others see Ros, and Jim Penton as Christians and do not expect them to necessarily change ... but somehow Ros and Jim Penton and others on Channel C seem to believe that ex-JWs turned Catholic are tyring to subvert them and preach to them and proselytize them. This is where it stands and shall stay for the forseeable future ... yet, I think James C. made a kind and fair response to Ros, and I hope that I did likewise with Jim Penton.
Ros to suggest that you have a blind spot is not meant to be mean ... it is a point of view. I and others have blind spots ... but, I would hope that as Christians we would look past the straws and rafters in one another's eyes and see a fellow believer.
Pax Vobiscum,
Jim W.