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.
*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.
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