My September 13th email took the original format suggested by Ergun Caner in his May 11th email in which he first introduced the Parliamentary format and set out the actual speaking schedule for what was then a proposed 2 hour debate (it was later agreed to extend it to 2 1/2 hours). Since our agreement in late July increased the length of the debate to 3 hours the time allotments for each speech and cross examination needed to be increased. Here is part of Ergun’s original proposal:

FORMAT:

Speeches start with the affirmative and alternate between the affirmative and negative throughout the debate.
The first and last speech on each side of the question are uninterruptible.
Any member of the opposing team may interrupt the speeches in the middle of the debate in order to ask the speaker to yield to a question.
Speakers are not required to answer these questions

• 1st Affirmative Speech: (10 minutes) uninterrupted
• Cross-Examination: 4 minutes
• 1st Negative Speech: (10 minutes) uninterrupted
• Cross Examination: 4 minutes
• 2nd Affirmative Speech: (10 minutes):

The first and last minute of the speech are uninterruptible.
In the 2nd-9th minutes of the speech any opposition debater may ask the speaker to yield to a question.
The speaker may accept, or decline the question.

• Cross Examination: 4 minutes
• Negative Speech: (10 minutes):

The first and last minute of the speech are uninterruptible.
In the 2nd-9th minutes of the speech any opposition debater may ask the speaker to yield to a question.
The speaker may accept, or decline the question

• Cross Examination: 4 minutes
• 1st Affirmative Rebuttal: (6 minutes)

The first and last minute of the speech are uninterruptible.
In the 2nd-5th minutes of the speech any opposition debater may ask the speaker to yield to a question.
The speaker may accept, or decline the question

• Optional audience participation
• Negative Rebuttal: (8 minutes): Uninterrupted
• Affirmative Rebuttal: (6 minutes) Uninterrupted

Here is my email from September 13th:

Brothers:

I trust each of you is well and enjoying the labors of the ministry. Ergun and Emir, I hope that your mother’s health has improved and James, I trust that you are recovering from the break-in and theft of your computer equipment. I have been praying for all of you.

As October 16 creeps up on us I want to nail down some of the specifics about our debate. I will be traveling a great deal between now and then and it would be very helpful to me if I could have the schedule of the debate clearly in mind as soon as possible to help me prepare.

At the end of July, here is what we agreed to regarding the length, format and thesis:

Length: 3 hours; this is to be divided into 2 sections; separated by a 15 minute intermission with equal time allotted for each speaker.

Format: Modified Parliamentary; following the basic schedule that Ergun laid out in his May 11, 2006 email. The times for each speech and cross ex will be adjusted to include the extra 30 minutes in this revision. Also, the speeches that are designated “interruptible” may only be interrupted once and with a question that takes no more than 15 seconds. The cross examination times are for questions, not speeches, and are to be related to the previous statement.

Thesis: Baptists and Calvinism: An Open Debate. No one should feel restricted from using any Baptist or Biblical material in his presentation.

I have taken the liberty to go back over Ergun’s email from May 11 and have tried to adjust times to fit into a 3-hour allotment. Following are the results. Please let me know if this is acceptable or if we need to make further adjustments. If this is acceptable then we can all begin making preparations accordingly. If it is not, please make adjustments as soon as possible. Thanks!

In Christ,
tom

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Baptists and Calvinism: An Open Debate

Speeches start with the affirmative and alternate between the affirmative and negative throughout the debate.

The first and last speech on each side of the question are uninterruptible.

Any member of the opposing team may interrupt the speeches so designated in order to ask the speaker to yield to one question which must be asked within a 15 second time frame.
Speakers are not required to answer these questions.

• 1st Affirmative Speech: (20 minutes) uninterrupted
• Cross-Examination: 5 minutes
• 1st Negative Speech: (20 minutes) uninterrupted
• Cross Examination: 5 minutes
• 2nd Affirmative Speech: (20 minutes):

The first and last minute of the speech are uninterruptible.
In the 2nd-9th minutes of the speech any opposition debater may ask the speaker to yield to a question.
The speaker may accept, or decline the question.

• Cross Examination: 5 minutes
• 2nd Negative Speech: (20 minutes):

The first and last minute of the speech are uninterruptible.
In the 2nd-9th minutes of the speech any opposition debater may ask the speaker to yield to a question.
The speaker may accept, or decline the question

• Cross Examination: 5 minutes

BREAK

• 1st Affirmative Rebuttal: (12 minutes)
• Cross Examination: 5 minutes

• 1st Negative Rebuttal: (12 minutes)
• Cross Examination: 5 minutes

• 2nd Affirmative Rebuttal: (12 minutes)
• Cross Examination: 5 minutes

• 2nd Negative Rebuttal: (12 minutes)
• Cross Examination: 5 minutes

• Affirmative Closing Statement: 6 minutes
• Negative Closing Statement: 6 minutes

You can easily see that all I did was take Ergun’s proposal, eliminate the audience participation (which had been discussed) increase speaking times and add a break and closing statements in order to fill out the 3 hours of actual debate to which Ergun, Emir, James and I had agreed.

James White immediately responded to my email with his approval of these details. By September 25, 12 days after sending it out, I still had not heard from Emir or Ergun Caner. So, I called Emir and caught him at the Joshua Convergence being held outside Orlando, Florida. In that call I appealed to him to let me know if the details that I had sent in the email were acceptable to him and Ergun and reiterated the time constraints under which I was working. He promised to check with his brother and get back with me within 48 hours. He did so via email on September 27th. His response consisted of four words: “Your assessment is correct.”

Two days later I boarded an airplane for Brazil, with notes and resources to make final preparations for my 42-45 minutes of the 3 hour debate on which all four men had agreed. In the middle of my speaking engagement in Brazil, On October 4th (12 days before the debate) I received a copy of an email that Brett O’Donnell sent which opened with this line:

“Below are the final details for the debate and are non-negotiable as they are based on what had been settled through earlier discussions.”

Then followed this “final format:”

The format:
The affirmative (though I use that term loosely since there really is no resolution) will be the Caners. The negative will be Drs. Ascol and White. I have amended the format forwarded by Dr. Ascol since it will make the debate last much longer than 3 hours. Below is the format that will be used in the debate.
Structure:

• 7:00 pm-Introductions, instructions to the audience and opening prayer-Moderator
• 7:10 Debate begins:

Speeches begin with the affirmative and alternate between the affirmative and negative throughout the debate.
The first and last speech on each side of the question are uninterruptible.
Any member of the opposing team may interrupt the speeches designated below in order to ask the speaker to yield to one question that must be asked in a 15 second time-frame (a question and not a speech). The speaker is not required to answer the question. Each speech may only be interrupted once.
Cross-Examination is for asking questions and not for making speeches.

• 1st Affirmative Speech: uninterrupted 15 minutes
• Cross-Examination: 5 minutes
• 1st Negative Speech: uninterrupted 15 minutes
• Cross Examination: 5 minutes
• 2nd Affirmative Speech: 15 minutes

The first and last minute of any speech are uninterruptible.
In the 2nd-14th minutes of the speech any opposition debater may ask the speaker to yield to a question.
The speaker may accept, or decline the question.

• Cross Examination: 5 minutes
• 2nd Negative Speech: 15 minutes

The first and last minute of the speech are uninterruptible.
In the 2nd-9th minutes of the speech any opposition debater may ask the speaker to yield to a question.
The speaker may accept, or decline the question.

• Cross Examination: 5 minutes
• Intermission: 15 minutes

• 1st Negative Rebuttal: 12 minutes
• 1st Affirmative Rebuttal: 12 minutes

The first and last minute of the speech are uninterruptible.
In the 2nd-5th minutes of the speech any opposition debater may ask the speaker to yield to a question.
The speaker may accept, or decline the question.

• 2nd Negative Rebuttal: Uninterrupted 12 minutes
• 2nd Affirmative Rebuttal: Uninterrupted 12 minutes

One need not be a mathematician to recognize that over 1/2 an hour of time was excised from the debate by moderatorial fiat. This removed one of the key points of negotiation between Emir and me that caused me to decide to reenter the debate in July. Those negotiations, as the email documentation proves, agreed upon 3 hours of debating.

Additionally, Dr. O’Donnell included in his email a “no use agreement” granting exclusive rights to the recording and distribution of the debate to Liberty Broadcasting Network which we are instructed to sign and return by fax within two days.

Upon receiving notice of O’Donnell’s email, I immediately called Ergun from Brazil and left voice mail on his phone. I was able to actually speak to Emir by phone and asked him how our agreement could be set aside by the moderator, without any discussion and at such late date? He said that he knew nothing more about it than I did, but would look into it and get back to me within 48 hours.

Over the next two days, James White and Brett O’Donnell exchanged a series of pointed emails in which James attempted to inform and remind Dr. O’Donnell that we had a written agreemetn that he had unilaterally set aside. Among the more egregious statements that O’Donnell made in that exchange was this:

“The times that Tom forwarded to Ergun were not accepted, but proposed by Tom for a three hour debate.”

Due to my limited access to a reliable internet server, I was unable to send email very often from Brazil. When I was able to get email out, I attempted simply to buttress James’ recitation of the facts that Dr. O’Donnell was completely disregarding. Those facts could have just as easily been confirmed by either Emir or Ergun Caner, but were not.

These are the facts. I submit that they are indisputable. Most of them are documented. All of them are verifiable. Compare them with the declarations by Ergun and Emir Caner.

Tomorrow I will conclude my thoughts on this sad saga with final reflections and my own effort to make some sense of these events.