I've tried to add items to the white list a few times now and it's not working. I've tried adding things that stack and things that don't stack. I did the "lootbags_itemdump", got the list, but things are laid out differently. I can't figure out a way to get them to work. :/

Here is a pastebin of my crash and below is what I have for my whitelisted section.

"whitelisted items" {
# Adding a modid and internal item name to this list will add the item to the Loot Bag drop table. The entry must be in the form ::::::[<nbt data (seriously don't try to make this by hand)> (optional)] Example to whitelist up to 16 iron ingots with a weight of 50: minecraft:iron_ingot:0:1:16:50.
S:"Global Whitelist" <
minecraft:gold_pickaxe:0:1:1:3
minecraft:gold_sword:0:1:1:3
minecraft:gold_shovel:0:1:1:3
minecraft:gold_axe:0:1:1:3
minecraft:gold_helmet:0:1:1:5
minecraft:gold_chestplate:0:1:1:5
minecraft:gold_boots:0:1:1:5
minecraft:gold_leggings:0:1:1:5
minecraft:redstone:0:1:7:5
>
}

Your item names for the golden items are wrong. Golden equipment is listed as golden_ and you have gold_. I'll improve the error handling of this so it's clear in the log what's wrong.

Well, I've tried adding other things, too. Would the issue just be with the golden item names?

Yes, it's crashing at that first item, so once you fix those names everything should work fine.

I fixed the names and it's working now, but I haven't gotten a redstone block. Not sure why, yet.

I'm pretty sure the name redstone is redstone dust and a redstone block is redstone_block so that's the issue. Double check in the NEI item.csv dump file though.