James White’s Double Standards

James A, Th.M

It must be nice to be an apologist that gets to write your own rules as to how Christians should conduct themselves amongst each other, and arbitrarily follow those standards yourself. That is James White. I’ll go into a little bit of detail later on because I want to include detailed links, but needed to respond to a Facebook post White posted where he referenced JD Hall and myself*

The melee started with Jordon Cooper’s wife and several of White’s followers complaining that JD didn’t properly cite the author of an article written by someone else, although anyone exercising even a mild modicum of diligence can see the author cited at the bottom of the article, which is how Hall stamps even his own articles.  Hall recently noted that Karen Swallow Prior’s  article claiming abortion wasn’t murder-then it was-then it wasn’t-then it was (after 2 or 3 edits) that KSP, being a communications expert, shouldn’t need to constantly revise her published articles to clarify her nuances. It is obvious that those trolling Hall over this signature issue are attempting to use Hall’s logic against KSP (a grammarian needing to edit her article) against him for exercising poor grammar. Hall’s critics were playing a game by attempting to compare content to form, Hall complained about KSP’s content (whether it’s unchristlike to call abortion murder), and her defenders complained about his format (who signed the dotted line on the article). I know right! Silly. Childish. Petty.

Cooper’s wife chimed in, and Hall mentioned that she was “loud”. James White got tagged in the conversation and accused Hall of “going after someone’s wife” (ignoring the fact this wasn’t her first attack on Hall, and that she commented about him first). In response to White, I posted a Youtube video where James White and his sidekick, Dick Pierce, were making fun of Mormon and Russian women (which he conveniently left out), so White hardly had grounds for falsely accusing someone of “going after someone’s wife”.

Short story done, now to White’s ridiculous and childish Facebook post.

So a bit later I am informed that a certain well known theonomist in a certain well known Reformed area of Facebook responded to my tweet by posting a wild-eyed Muslim’s video about my comments about…Brigham Young’s wives. Now, if that isn’t nutty enough, a while later I am informed that the King of All Internet Trolls, a KJVO of the looniest order, likewise tweeted the same Muslim’s video (and come to think of it, I have never seen the theonomist and the KJVO troll in the same room at the same time!). You just can’t make this stuff up, can you?

First of all, I am not James Ach (there are 2 James A’s on here, I am a graduate of PMI Ministries, Ivy Tech, Blackstone School of Law, and Grace College and currently working on a PhD through PMI).* Nevertheless, I am sick to death of White marginalizing people like this when he preaches to everyone else not to do it. He has chastised all Christians about treating Muslims with respect and not marginalizing all Muslims, and yet he constantly insults those on this website every chance he gets, and anyone who disagrees with him (about anything from Bible versions, to rowing~seriously). White can attack anyone he wants to and it’s apologetics. But you challenge him and it’s “trolling”. White accuses Leighton Flowers of http://www.Soteriology101.com of chasing him to debate Calvinism as a trolling attempt to get notoriety, but when White did the same thing to William Lane Craig and Norman Geisler (and I have over 30 screenshots to prove it) it’s “ministry”.

Second, White did not simply attack Mormon women. He attacked Russian women in general as well with Dick Pierce saying that “Russian women look like Russian men” (35 second mark). However, notice how White shifts the focus with a genetic fallacy (dismissing content solely because of its source regardless of whether it’s true). So I’m KJVO and “nutty” (whatever that means). What does that have to do with White’s own comments posted on Youtube? Nothing. It’s typical White-style marginalization (Funny my last article showing where White is wrong about Islam I stated that White would pull the KJVO card if he read it, so no surprise he did it here.)

Third, I am not a theonomist. Considering that most theonomists are Calvinists (and I don’t know a single one that isn’t- and White, being an amillennialist, isn’t much different) and White knows we are opposed to Calvinism, White’s hints that I am this theonomist is pretty comical (and I’m not even sure White knows what theonomy is). However, so far nobody has been able to find any Facebook post by this “theonomist” that was posted before my post on Twitter. Yet White is giving the impression that the theonomist and I are the same person. Conspiracy theory much, Mr. White? White is also equating when he found out about the posts with the timing they were actually posted, so he doesn’t have enough sense to know that just because he heard about my post later, that my post on Twitter could have been posted first before the “theonomist” posted it on Facebook. And White calls me nutty!

Now, I should point out that, of course, pointing out the objective fact that polygamy in Utah was a real mess, and, that Brigham Young married a number of very homely women, has nothing whatsoever to do with the modern situation. In case no one noticed, Brigham Young, and all of Brigham Young’s wives, are deceased. Dead. Long gone.

Now if he would only use that standard for those who criticize John Calvin’s treatment of Servetus (and the 47 other people Calvin had killed). If it’s OK to talk about people who are dead and gone, then White shouldn’t have any more issues when others criticize his dead heroes. Nevertheless, as was already noted, it wasn’t just the Mormon women being referred to, it was also Russian women in general, and I never heard where White was referring to any “dead and gone” Russian women.

It doesn’t matter if they were dead, he was referring to their appearances as women, not merely Mormon women. It was a degrading and insulting comment about women, period. White repeatedly tells others that it’s wrong to insult Mohammad, but why not? He’s dead and gone! According to White’s brilliant logic, it should be “game on”, right?

So the theonomist either proved himself really bad at that logic thing, or, more likely, was just goofing around, and proved himself bad at the humor thing. It had never even crossed my mind to wonder if the Lutheran fellow was married

So it never crossed White’s mind whether this Lutheran fellow was married, and yet White stated emphatically that Hall went after his WIFE. Who’s the one with a logic problem again?

White closes with this genius excuse,

If there are no homely women, there are no beautiful women, either. Just that simple. And now for the documentation:

So I guess someone has to be ugly, right! Without ugly women, there’d be no beautiful women. Apparently, God elected some women to be ugly so there’d be an elect class of beautiful women, heh! That’s one of the worst contrasting either/or fallacies I’ve ever read. In fact, White even posted pictures of his contentions to double down on his comments from the Youtube video.

The bottom line is that while White preaches that “inconsistency is the sign of a failed argument”, he demonstrates over and over (and over, and over, and over, and over) that he’s perfectly OK with being consistently inconsistent. White lashes out the most at those who consistently call him out on it.**

If you’re going to be a jerk, then at least be a consistent one, and stop telling others not to do what you do so freely on a daily basis.

 

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*Regardless of the issues I have with Dr James Ach, White doesn’t hold a candle to that man’s knowledge of manuscript issues, Hebrew and Greek languages (even correcting White once on a mistranslated Hebraism), and in fact, posed questions to White about Codex Sinaiticus that White to this day has never answered, nor has White ever responded to the anachronisms that Ach pointed out in his KJVO Controversy book. So White has a vested interest in preventing people from reading anything written by Ach or any of the rest of us because Ach repeatedly put him in his place on both the KJVO issues and Calvinism.

**Of course, JD Hall and I don’t agree theologically anymore than James White and Michael Brown do. But it’s OK for White to have agreement with Brown on social and/or political issues, but wrong for me to agree with JD Hall on social issues in the SBC where you would expect White to have more discernment against their support of feminism, Catholicism, animal rights activism; where Hall has nailed it, and White has coddled Hall’s antagonists, and for the most part remained silent since his initial post about Karen Swallow Prior (which to White’s credit, was brilliant). Once he realized that he had a large amount of followers (like Tom Buck and Frank Turk) that also like KSP and refuse to call her to repentance, White threw Hall under the bus.

Enough With “Not All Muslims Are Terrorists” Nonsense

Dr.James A,PhD

If Islam is a religion of peace & hospitality, then why aren’t Muslims in the middle east welcoming Syrian refugees?

*UPDATED with MUST SEE VIDEO of a MODERATE Islamic authority admitting that all Muslims believe in death penalty for homosexuality, adultery, etc..

Dr. James White, considered an “expert” on Islam, posted a Facebook link obviously in response to tempers flaring about the attacks in Paris from “radical” Muslims, writes, “Ignorance and bigotry is ugly, no matter who the ignorant bigot is.”  On the Twitter link pointing to this comment, this sentiment is defended by many others like “WWUTT“-“If every Muslim is a terrorist, then with 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, how is that dude still alive?”

This is common naive rhetoric about Islam. Just because James White debates Muslims does not give him the right to distort the facts and demand that Americans concerned for the safety of our borders stop calling it like it is (i.e., that Islam IS the face of terrorism).

It is been often said that a moderate Muslim is a backslider. There’s a lot of truth in that statement because Islam from its inception was founded on the murder of their enemies. Christianity was not founded as such and that’s an enormous difference. Those of us who complain about Islamic terrorism don’t disagree that there are Muslims that *appear* to be peaceful, but as Brigitte Gabriel notes, the peaceful majority are irrelevant when it’s a 300 million minority of Muslims that are decimating cultures. This argument also ignores Islam’s historic tactic of assimilating into their surroundings until they gain the upper hand. So of course they are going to be “peaceful”; it’s part of the Quraysh Model  (cited by Alan Kurschner who has sided with White on KJVO issues, lest we be accused of citing biased sources!) where Muslims are permitted to lie, and lie in wait in deceit until they are in a better position to crush their foes. For more on Islam permitting its followers to lie, see Islam Permits Lying to Deceive Unbelievers and Bring World Domination! (See below for Quranic verses).

That “not all Muslims are terrorists” is a naive and weak argument. The justification of such contention goes something like this: we need to be fair because people often misrepresent Christians in the same way. Not all Christians participated in the Crusades, so it’s unfair to say that all Christians are cold-blooded killers. Thus, if we label all Muslims as terrorists, then we open that same door against Christians. But this is a false dichotomy. It ignores the fact that not only were Crusaders not Christians, but that Christianity’s written authority, the Bible, never advocates spreading the gospel by violence: ISLAM DOES (Surah 47; Surah 8:12). A “Christian” who kills in the name of Christ is not being faithful to the text of Scripture (John 16:2). A Muslim who kills in the name of Allah *IS* being faithful to his religious texts. White wants to give Islam the benefit of the doubt and allow for the creation of some kind of “good Islam”, some kind of hybrid offshoots that are somehow different from how the religion was created and founded in the first place. So as much sense as the “fairness” arguments appears to make, using the inconsistent examples of Christians that go rogue is a red herring that ignores the crucial distinction between what a Christian’s authority demands from that of a Muslim.  Muslims who are not Jihadists are inconsistent to their own religion, and it’s because of this that it is so important to weigh the rhetoric of “moderates” and arguments in favor of supporting them.

Not all KKK or Aryans are “racist”. There are many involved in these groups (in particular, the “Christian Identity” branch of the Aryan Nation) that claim to be pro-White, and do not advocate violence against non-whites, do not hate non-whites but simply put their own race first. Do we then ignore the rest of the Klan or Aryan Brotherhood because there are some that are not as militant as others? Of course not. Why? Because the whole organization from its inception is racist, bigoted, and is violent at its core. The minor deviations from the core group are the exception not the rule. Not all mafia members are hitmen/assassins. Do we give the mafia a pass and invite their stores into our neighborhoods because not all of the mafia are drug dealers or killers? Clearly not. But this is the type of logic that we are expected to succumb to by Dr. White and a majority of leftist liberals.

We “get” that James White wants to be “fair”, which is a little ironic given his presuppositional apologetics (where “fair” often MUST take a back seat to a foundational truth when “fair” is being used as subjectively and inconsistently as it is by White). However, White is often very inconsistent in his application of fairness towards others (White considers all King James Only (“KJVO”) advocates as “cultists” and uses such a label to marginalize any KJVO that would oppose him. If he read this article, he would likely demean its content based on our KJVO stance alone. He also considers all who oppose Calvinism as suffering from “Calvinist Derangement Syndrome”), so it’s a little more than discouraging that he gives Muslims greater deference than other Christians.

Obviously, the reason White’s position is a dangerous view is because it is one of the excuses used to permit Muslim refugees into the US, which officials have admitted can not even vet a percentage of those entering the country to determine how many have links to radical Muslim groups. And let’s face it, if these Muslims walked from Syria to Germany and beyond, do you really think that the U.S. states that refused them are going to stop their spread throughout the country? If only one state accepts them, then its game over. The only thing that will stop the spread of Islam in America are American gun owners-and the globalist liberals are coming for the guns, too. The Muslims will overwhelm the country until they are in a formidable position to take the fight to the next-door Americans. Think about it; thirteen major Islamic countries and none of those Islamic countries will accept the refugees? Seriously? Nobody sees a flaw in that manufactured conundrum? Of course, none of the celebrities screaming for the U.S. to bring the refugees in are willing to bring them into their homes. Groups like ISIS have already stated their intention to infiltrate the West by using the so-called refugee crisis. Can we really afford to give this kind of rhetoric by James White and many others who share these naive views the time of day?

Fortunately, not all of James White’s friends have swallowed his careless rhetoric about Islam. Although White has generally made some good points in exposing some inconsistencies within Islam, his tacit endorsement of moderate Muslims under the guise of “we need to reach them for the gospel” rivals only such ignorance as that of ecumenicists Russell Moore, Ed Stetzer and Rick Warren of the Southern Baptist Convention. Yes, Muslims too need to be reached with the gospel, but we don’t need to sugarcoat the other person’s religion just to avoid “offending” them anymore than we would sugarcoat witnessing to a Roman Catholic. Not all Roman Catholics participated in the Inquisitions or Crusades (nor would many modern Catholics approve of it now), but the fact is the Catholic Church is built on a false gospel and murder. Ignoring that fact to make the gospel easier to swallow is doing a great disservice to the hearer and avoids the necessary call to repentance for that person to forsake the false religion that has rendered him blind.

Furthermore, although White claims that he tells Muslims they need to repent, his views on “moderates” allows the Muslim to choose a “safer” alternative within Islam. White deprives the Muslim of one of the most compelling reasons to leave the cult, and that is because it’s very core and texts are based cruelty and murder.

We understand that there are many so-called “peaceful” Muslims, but given their own religious texts, there’s no way to even confirm that with certainty. Nevertheless, that completely misses the point. We can not afford to give the benefit of the doubt to sleeper cells of radical Islam posing as peaceful moderates, and over 1,000 years of bloody Islamic history proves that White and anyone sharing his misguided magniloquence are the ones in denial and gross error.

 

 

 

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Quranic Verses On Lying

Qur’an (16:106) – Establishes that there are circumstances that can “compel” a Muslim to tell a lie.

Qur’an (3:28) – This verse tells Muslims not to take those outside the faith as friends, unless it is to “guard themselves” against danger, meaning that there are times when a Muslim should appear friendly to non-Muslims, even though they should not feel that way..

Qur’an (9:3) – “…Allah and His Messenger are free from liability to the idolaters…” The dissolution of oaths with the pagans who remained at Mecca following its capture. They did nothing wrong, but were evicted anyway.

Qur’an (40:28) – A man is introduced as a believer, but one who had to “hide his faith” among those who are not believers.

Qur’an (2:225) – “Allah will not call you to account for thoughtlessness in your oaths, but for the intention in your hearts” The context of this remark is marriage, which explains why Sharia allows spouses to lie to each other for the greater good.

Qur’an (3:54) – “And they (the disbelievers) schemed, and Allah schemed (against them): and Allah is the best of schemers.” The Arabic word used here for scheme (or plot) is makara, which literally means ‘deceit’. If Allah is supremely deceitful toward unbelievers, then there is little basis for denying that Muslims are allowed to do the same. (See also 8:30 and 10:21)

http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/quran/011-taqiyya.htm

*The following link is from a MODERATE Muslim that admits that ALL MUSLIMS believe in the death penalty and execution for things like homosexuality, adultery, etc…that women should sit separately from men, you name it. And the audience was a mixed group that were NOT radical Jihadists, but MODERATE Muslims.