James White’s Inconsistent View of Free Will With Biblical Inerrancy

Dr. James A., PhD

It is well known that James White is a Calvinist. As a Calvinist, he has rejected compatibilism on numerous occasions, and affirmed it in others, which leaves really only a hard determinist view which is what compatibilism ultimately boils down to anyway. When White had a conversation with George Bryson and Hank Hanegraaf*, he admitted that rape of children occurs because God ordains it and has a purpose for it. That’s not soft determinism (compatibilism). Calvinists often vacillate between compatibilism and hard determinism, but both sides are normally quick to affirm that man has no free will. His only “freedom” is determined by the nature in which he has, and since God determined that very nature in the first place….well, you get the point. All of your actions are determined whether you are a hard or soft determinist, and only the Calvinist’s conflicting view of “permission” and “secondary causation” attempts to make a distinction.**

According to White, all of our human actions are not free. Following in the footsteps of Pink, Clark, and many other Calvinists who bite the bullet on free will, White concedes that man’s every thought and action is determined. To consider otherwise, in White’s opinion, makes you either a Molinist or an Open Theist.

However, White isn’t so consistent in this view when it comes to the transmission of the Bible. In White’s book, Scripture Alone, he dedicates a chapter discussion on the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy, and on Article VIII writes,

Without going into great detail on the intricacies of the dictation theory of transmission, in a nutshell, it is the view that God controlled everything that the writers penned as Scripture (although it does NOT hold that God did not use the writer’s individuality as wrongfully implied by White). White REJECTS this view.

Now here’s the MAJOR inconsistency between White’s view of inerrancy and his Calvinism. The Dictation Theory of transmission OUGHT to be every determinist’s creed when it comes to transmission because it is the one time even non determinists accept that there are at least some things that God determines (Shhhhh…Most Calvinists believe us Non Calvinists do not believe that God ever determines anything at all!!!). Yet White deviates from his view within Calvinism that says man has absolutely no free will, to a complete capitulation of free will when it comes to the transmission of the Bible.

This reveals an ENORMOUS inconsistency in White’s Calvinist view of free will that simply can not be explained away with his normal obfuscation and equivocating rhetoric. However, it is convenient for White to reject human free will in the transmission of the Bible because his rejection of the Majority Text, Textus Receptus, and King James Bible, depends on human error. Thus, White has stuck himself in a conundrum on both his Calvinism and his view of Bible transmission.

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**Ironically, when James White attempts to appeal to compatibilism, he refers to it as a “mystery”, something that he vehemently ridiculed Leighton Flowers for.

Simply because it is a mystery though, doesn’t mean Reformed people don’t have any Biblical information to prove their view. The Bible repeatedly shows us that God decreed all things [IT DOES? REFERENCE PLEASE], and that people are still held accountable for their actions, especially their sinful actions.Theologians refers to this as compatibilism: God’s decree is compatible with a person’s will. They don’t contradict each other.” LINK (Emphasis added)

 

James White Lies About Peter Ruckman and Sam Gipp

James A., Ph.D

I’m beginning to think anyone that listens to James White is as brainwashed and lacking in proper cerebral oxygen flow as the liberal anti-morality mafias. White is simply a flat-out nutcase. And I really don’t care how many of his followers criticize the manner in which I address his character because he treats those who disagree with him in the EXACT same manner, if not worse. White normally takes what he considers the “radicals” of KJVO advocates, and uses them to broad-brush the entire group. He tries to use the “gotcha” moments to paint the worst caricature of any KJVO believer. White is one of the most dishonest and disingenuous critics I have ever encountered.

On 5/19/16, White discussed a video by Brian Denlinger that claimed James White was a Jesuit. Now I agree with Brian that James White is a Jesuit, but not for the reasons that Brian gives such as his book The King James Only Controversy being endorsed by Norman Geisler, who graduated from Loyola University-a known Jesuit college- in the late 1960s. However, where White sticks his foot in his mouth is that in the video, White admits that he always wondered about Geisler’s Jesuit connections, and that it bothered him. He also attributes Geisler’s rejection of Reformed Theology to Geisler’s training at Loyola (William Craig and Geisler both graduated from Wheaton, so does White attribute Craig’s rejection of Reformed Theology on Wheaton? White just did the exact same thing he accused Brian of. So should we attribute White’s rejection of the KJV on his degree from Fuller Seminary!). Did anyone catch that? Of course not. White’s followers rarely think through anything he says. If you KNEW Geisler was so influenced by a Jesuit university that it affected his view of your precious Reformed Theology, why would you have him endorse your book anyway? 

Anyway, on to the issue.

At the 1:10:00 mark, White made his normal spew against King James Only believers, with the exception that this time, he qualified that not all King James Only believers are “cultic”, which is quite ironic because that’s not what he said just a little over a month ago when he addressed yours truly on his radio show over the racist issues and once on what started as a joke I made about his bike riding stats that White took to a new level of crazy.

I challenged White to debate that KJVO advocates are cultists, and posted for all to see, and that my debate partner would be a KJVO Calvinist. Of course, White would never accept such a challenge because I win the moment I walk in the door with a person who holds to the same 1689 LBC confession that he does. So White has to modify his rhetoric to fit the topic of the day. So how does White “prove” that there are “KJVO Cultists”?….here it is….ready!!!

Because Peter Ruckman and Sam Gipp make the KJV CENTRAL to their theology, and believe if you don’t believe and use the KJV you’re going to hell!!!

Here’s an excerpt from Sam Gipp’s Answer Book , Question #35, that proves James White is a bald-faced liar.

QUESTION: Can someone get saved if you are using a bible other than the King James? ANSWER: Yes.

EXPLANATION: Generally, the facts surrounding the gospel of Jesus Christ and the simplicity of salvation are found intact even in the grossest perversions of Scripture. It must be remembered though that the Bible is a weapon in the hand of the Christian. See Hebrews 4:12, Job 40:19 and II Timothy 3:16. It is also food that a new Christian might grow properly. See I Peter 2:2. It is in these areas that new bibles are weakened. In fact, the very verses given above are altered in many new versions, thus weakening Scripture. It is therefore possible to get saved through other versions, but you will never be a threat to the devil by growing.

Anyone who has ever read a few of Ruckman’s books knows he has NEVER said that a person who does not use the KJV is “going to hell”. Ruckman has given testimony on several occasions of entering Catholic homes and using their own Bible’s to lead them to Christ. The only thing White is ever consistent about is consistently foisting straw man arguments on to KJVO advocates.

Furthermore, White also made the comment that Ruckman, Gipp, etc…never “debate” Roman Catholics. Here’s Peter Ruckman debating Catholic apologist, Karl Keating . White seems to make “debating” the criteria for spreading the gospel, even though Paul makes it clear that it’s PREACHING (1 Cor 1). So I guess we could say that since James White never preached in the streets like Ruckman did (even at 93 years old), he’s a phony.

To add more fuel to the fire, White said that KJVO Baptists don’t have philosophy degrees. I have an earned PhD (not honorary) from Calvary Christian College & Seminary. Furthermore, I know quite a few KJVO Baptists with earned PhD’s (Waite, Sorenson, Brown, et al), and linguistic scholars who have demolished White-among other modern version proponents-regarding textual criticism (Pickering, Letis, Robinson). However, this is an interesting critique since White criticizes William Lane Craig, Jerry Walls, David Allen, and Leighton Flowers for their emphasis on philosophical attacks on Calvinism.

Thus we have White lying about Ruckman’s and Gipp’s position on the KJV, lying about Baptists with PhDs, lying about KJVOs debating Catholics, ad nauseum… how does anyone take this guy seriously? Of course, I don’t really expect White to repent & retract his lies. He will ignore it, repeat it again some time in the future, and his followers that harass us will find a way to excuse it. What a shameful crowd.

So while White is bragging about debates (Romans 1:29) he does once or twice a year, in luxury hotels with accommodations and air conditioning, he’s slandering those who debate with unbelievers in the  streets of Miami, Pensacola, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, etc…. every day.

 

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Was DL Moody A Calvinist? Dealing With Calvinist Dishonesty

Dr James A, PhD (Originally Posted Through Dr James Ach’s Twishort)

I’m used to seeing people like James White attempt to rewrite history, especially when it comes to the Roman Catholic Church and Augustine, Anabaptists, and Waldensians, but this statement by Colin Maxwell takes the cake.

Maxwell writes that Bob Gray Sr in including the accomplishments of American’s that happened to be Calvinists is demonstrating an inconsistent position in claiming that Calvinism is a lie. In other words, if you claim that their THEOLOGY is wrong, then you must accept that every good deed that they do in the name of their theology is a concession to the correctness of the theology. With that logic, if an atheist saves a person from drowning, we must then accept his philosophy that there is no God. His goodness deprives us of the right to critique his beliefs.

Ben Franklin maintained Deist views. Do we then espouse to Franklin’s Deism because of what he did for American freedom? Colin Maxwell is making some of the most ridiculous leaps in common sense and logic I’ve ever seen (Now keep in mind, at this point we are still talking about HISTORY: I have to say that now before some pious idiot points to what I said and claims “Look, see! Dr Ach is talking about philosophy and logic without mentioning the Bible”. If you can show me Ben Franklin in Scripture then I’ll edit this).

But what is the most ATROCIOUS part of Maxwell’s missive is his claim that DL Moody and Billy Sunday were Calvinists.

First of all, Maxwell completely contradicts his own theory by claiming that “all four were Calvinists”, only to later state that Spurgeon, not Moody, commented on Moody’s “SCENTED Calvinism”. Again, we don’t deny there are things in common between Calvinism and contra beliefs. But there are also similarities with Muslims and Christians, ie., both are monotheistic (belief there is only one God, it’s the nature of God that is in dispute, not that there’s only one); but that doesn’t mean that everyone that believes there is only one God is a Muslim. That’s EXACTLY what Maxwell is trying to claim here. And even then, his evidence is based on what someone else assumed about Moody instead of pointing to anything that Moody himself actually said about Calvinism.

To even put Moody and Spurgeon in the same category is laughable considering the amount of heated debates they had over the issues of grace. At one point Moody even accused Spurgeon of encouraging converts to “sin their way into the Kingdom”.

One of Moody’s most popular quotes AGAINST Calvinism is “The elect are the whosoever wills, the non elect are the whosoever wonts”. In arguing with Calvinists, Moody said, ” “I want to talk about the word believe, the word receive, and the word take. Now who will come and take Christ as Saviour?

With Calvinists desperate to establish historical relevancy to the infant church and historical supremacy in the modern church will grasp any terminology that hints at the appearance of their dogma and claim it as their own regardless of context. If someone in AD 200 wrote that they thought a cat was predestined to eat mice, a Calvinist would take that phrase as proof the person was a Calvinist. The very reasons that folks like Bob Gray DO quote the works of many who did admit they were Calvinists is because we recognize THEY WERE INCONSISTENT yet maintained truths that were NOT CALVINIST. One may quote something Spurgeon says about the failure of works in getting one to heaven without relying on what Spurgeon thought about election. I can agree with the former and disagree with the latter without affirming Spurgeon’s Calvinism. But, according to Maxwell’s logic (and many other Calvinists) if Spurgeon and I both believed in tying our shoes before we walked in them, that means we’re both Calvinists. However, as we seen with Islam, that logic can not be applied consistently and it is the failure of Calvinists to acknowledge this difference that contributes to many of the good things that Calvinists DID espouse to going unnoticed because of the perceived need to put distance between Calvinists and their opponents.

Relying on Spurgeon to define Moody’s beliefs is erroneous. They were contemporaries and Moody spoke for himself, and clearly opposed Calvinism as a whole, and specifically Spurgeon’s views on it. Yet must we concede to the Calvinists who insist that all who oppose Calvinism are Arminians? I vehemently reject the conditional security of Arminianism, I reject their Pelagian view of original sin and I reject their modern attempt to adopt a theology that robs God of His foreknowledge (Open Theism), yet because I also reject Calvinism, I am nevertheless still branded as an Arminian as if those are the only two options. That is how Calvinists attempt to confuse the issues and rewrite history; by using dishonest means and false weights and measures.

If Billy Sunday, the METHODIST, DL Moody and even Charles Spurgeon preached the way they did back then in today’s society they would be branded as heretics by ALL Calvinists, including Maxwell whether he admits it or not (he certainly spends enough time writing against the things that Spurgeon affirmed, and supporting the things that Spurgeon renounced, like Limited Atonement).

WIthout clear proof that Moody and Sunday were Calvinists, and in the face of clear statements and beliefs they held to the contrary, it is extremely dishonest and disingenuous to parade these men as Calvinists. But this is what we’ve gotten used to from liars like Maxwell, and unfortunately a large host of other Reformers.

James White’s Idiotic Review of Young Messiah

Dr. James A., PhD

Apparently, some movie is out about Christ in His youth. I won’t pretend to know anything about it, so I won’t comment on the movie. I won’t comment on eating rat poison either, but I have a feeling it’s bad for you. What I can comment on is James White’s erroneous view of the 2nd commandment. White states,

I do not think it is a violation of the 2nd Commandment to make a movie or the like about Jesus. I know many who do. However, I believe the making of images prohibited in that commandment is directly relevant to worship, first of all, and secondly, involves a human speculation about something God has not revealed. But the Son did, in fact, enter into human flesh, and I do not believe God would have struck a child dead for drawing a picture of Jesus on the ground. If you worship an image of Jesus, that is wrong. But portraying Him in the historical context of His own personal revelation is not. That’s my understanding.”

Now think about something. In early Greek and Roman culture, there were busts, statues, portraits made and imprints on currency of every major philosopher, Caesar, queen, you name it. Ever notice that none of the apostles nor any of their converts who saw Christ, nor anyone else EVER made any such portrait of Christ, the most popular Person of that day? Don’t think that was coincidence or accident.

Secondly, White makes an enormous category error. He opines that if a child saw Jesus and drew a picture of Him, He would not strike him dead and therefore the portrait wouldn’t violate the 2nd commandment. Here’s the flaw, the portrait the child drew in James’ scenario would be of the ACTUAL JESUS, whereas a movie or play is someone OTHER THAN the real Christ.

The other problem with these kinds of movies is the same problem with the Catholic crucifix, it gives a person an erroneous fixation on Christ based on a speculative and imaginative caricature. Every time a person prays, he or she will have that false image in their head of some Hollywood version of Jesus. In fact, in James White’s debate against Patrick Madrid, he attacked the crucifix, and in the second chapter of his Roman Catholic Controversy, he stated that the display of Christ on a crucifix leads one away from the truth of the gospel (and note, his comments on that were in spite of and collateral to their element of worship).

Scripture says there are those blessed who have NOT SEEN Christ and yet believed (John 20:29). Thus, having a false caricature of Christ is not only unnecessary, but blasphemous. If a professing Baptist can’t condemn a false caricature of Christ in a movie, then how is anyone supposed to take his critiques of paintings of Christ or crucifixes seriously? The second commandment (Exodus 20:4-5) didn’t simply say thou shalt not worship any graven image (that part’s in Exodus 20:5), but that you are not to MAKE any graven image, OR LIKENESS. So not only is the 2nd commandment against the worshiping of graven images, but against the very making of them, and creating a likeness. This is clearly why all of the disciples raised on Jewish law never left behind any sort of portrait of Christ. Nobody was concerned with the idea that they needed to prove the historicity of Christ by preserving it in a Polaroid instead of recording His words in Scripture. Any movie that attempts to portray Christ is an attempt at a  creation of a likeness of the Son of God, and a false creation at that. To excuse this kind of caricature merely because Christ was in the flesh demeans His deity.

These are the kind of problems you have with a non discerning Calvinist who has no absolute authority other than some Greek original he’s never seen, and some Bible that he couldn’t tell you is THE word of God. Even the ones he does use are interpreted allegorically because he’s a staunch amillennialist. But ah, don’t want to offend the fellow Calvinist movie buffs. Gotta stay soft with the party line. That’s why he gets away with saying one thing to Catholics, and another to his followers. It’s the kind of mentality that will tell an unbeliever that the proof that the Bible has been preserved is that we have over 5,000 manuscripts to prove it (when he really means the TR has over 5,000 mss), and then criticize those very same mss as not being the most reliable when talking to professing believers (In other words, he needs the Textus Receptus and Majority Text to prove provenance to unbelievers, but when he needs to sell a book about King James Onlyism to professing believers, and get royalties from the Lockman Foundation as a critical consultant on the NASB, he will attack those same manuscripts as untrustworthy, unreliable, full or errors, and not the oldest).

I’d trust a blind man giving me directions down an elevator shaft before I’d trust this guy with the Bible.

 

For more White Lies, see my recent response to his Dividing Line diatribe. This response had numerous of White’s own followers questioning him, so much so that he threatened to block anyone for asking questions or mentioning it.

Response to James White’s Slander, Lies, Hypocrisy and Incompetence~ PART 1

By James A, ThM,

[Updated below with how James White aids a fake Muslim]

 

On March 8, 2016, “Dr” James White of Alpha & Omega ministries (which is kind of an ironic name for a ministry who endorses a Bible [NASB] that removes “Alpha and Omega” from Revelation 1:11. Revelation 1:11 KJV, Revelation 1:11, NASB) performed a character assassination ritual on his Dividing Line show attacking yours truly, kind of (beginning that the 29:00 mark). His aim was at Dr. James Ach, who has not been at Do Right Christians for nearly a year now (a fact that has been well-known) and thus it is already clear that White didn’t do even the least bit of homework before putting on his papal mitre. White lied several times, used unconfirmed gossip, and blatantly slandered me. This has been par for the course for White, and virtually none of his followers bothered to fact check his assertions (one who tried to, “Jonathon”, was yelled at during the show which you’ll see if you watch it at the 44:50 mark).

I’m going to go point by point and shred White’s bogus diatribe against me which all started over a screenshot I posted about his bogus bike riding stats, which he never adequately answered, and even lied about. But think about this. White has ignored our Twitter account for 3 years. Of all the things he chose to respond to: not Calvinism, not King James Only, not amillennialism, or any of the other things we’ve challenged him on, he chose to get angry over what we posted about his bike riding stats! And this guy calls ME unstable? Matt Estes was right, I DID post it as a joke even though the numbers were actually off, it was White that took it to an entirely different level.

“Big Brother”

White starts off with accusing me of cooperating with “Big Brother” because I reported 2 tweets of his to Twitter API. They suspended his account because they confirmed my allegations that White was publicly accusing me of a crime, the crime of stalking. In White’s world, accusing someone of a crime is not a big deal. In the real world, false allegations of criminal activity can have real consequences to those of us who live in the real world. If anyone was attempting to get “Big Brother” involved in getting a Christian in trouble with the government, it was White, not me.

Secondly, since when did Twitter become a government agency? Is White and his followers so incompetent that they don’t know who “Big Brother” is? White even stated my actions would set a bad precedent that allows government to attack other Christians. This is a major category fallacy since Twitter is a privately owned social media engine, and not an agency of the government. Twitter has some dubious policies, and are especially biased against conservatives, but far from being the FBI, CIA, NSA, State Police, Obama Administration, Department of Justice, local police, Homeland Security, et al. THOSE are Big Brother agencies, NOT TWITTER. It takes the most gullible sycophant to swallow this charismatically emotional driven complaint from White.

Furthermore, White claimed that his “freedom of speech” and First Amendment was infringed upon. I’m sorry, what? Again, a category error where Twitter is not the government of which the First Amendment is directed at (federal, and states through the 14th Amendment). Restrictions or liberties are not enforced by Twitter, they are the responsibilities of governments. Furthermore, First Amendment protections to not protect persons from yelling fire in a movie theater. Free speech does not entitle people to cause riots. If free speech were a carte blanche to say whatever you wanted without exception, there would be no such thing as defamation laws (the legal term that incorporates both slander and libel). White demonstrates he is completely ignorant of law.

Finally, I reported ONLY the tweet that falsely accused me of a criminal act. I did NOT report the vile tweets that ridiculed or vilified me. I reported ONLY the tweets that he posted for Big Brother to see that were false accusations of criminal acts. What White DIDN’T show his followers were the other tweets that were still left on his page, including the ones he sent me calling me evil (yet if I tweet HIM, it’s stalking). Twitter did not delete his comments because I was “afraid” of being “exposed”, but because White made false criminal accusations. Period. White tries to convince others it was based on his content of “exposing” someone, which clearly was not the case.

[We won’t say how White went to “Big Brother” Youtube to get videos of him removed]

Mother’s Basement

At 31:34, White says I’m an anonymous troll (which I have all  my information except my full last name for personal reasons because of something that has happened to my children of which police have yet to do anything about). My college is listed which can be verified, and I have talked with numerous friends on Twitter at length over the phone who know exactly who I am, where I live, what church I go to, etc… Funny however, that White used an anonymous person, “Hakim”, to get most of the dirt he got on Ergun Caner, and endorses several other another anonymous accounts ( one who’s actually an attorney out of Georgia).

But living in my mother’s basement? Seriously? What kind of adult says something like that? And what kind of followers listen to such a childish, immature comment and claps? I thought the days of the ‘your mama” jokes were over.

White continues I am in my mid 30s (I am 43) and never worked a job (even though profile says I have a ThM [recently finished my PhD but thesis hasn’t been graded] and am paralegal). Of course, White here is fishing for information, but he’s still making false assumptions which shows how bad of a psychic he is.

Do Nothing But Attack People

White says I do “nothing but attack people”. He’s an “apologist”. Apologists by nature attack people all day long. White attacks King James Only advocates all the time (even accuses us of being a cult) and non Calvinists whom he claims have “Anti Calvinist Derangement Syndrome”. Do you really think that those of us who believe the deity of Christ, the Trinity, the virgin birth, the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, creation, cessation, salvation by grace through faith, are going to quietly sit by and NOT say something when White travels the world referring to us in the same vernacular he uses to describe Jehovah’s Witnesses? Are you kidding me? We defend ourselves from HIS ATTACKS, and we KJVOS are the ones stalking HIM?

But if James White hounds someone like William Lane Craig, who refuses to debate him because he’s a jerk, then for White, it’s OK.

James White also chased Ergun Caner for about ten years.

Now I don’t have a problem with White chasing anyone because he’s doing what he thinks is his duty as an apologist to do (for argument’s sake, not that he’s right about the content of what he’s attacking them over). But what I write about White is based on the exact same conviction, yet he applies a different standard for himself. White’s doctrine’s are heretical, dangerous, and misleading Christians all over the world, and I have the same right to call him out as he believes he does to me. But only one of us is accusing the other of “stalking”.

“He Doesn’t Go Out There And Do Debates”

No, I don’t. I go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come (Luke 14:23) because the Bible admonishes that kind of soul winning (Acts 5:42) instead of debating people (Isaiah 58:4, Romans 1:29, Titus 3:10). Soul winning IS a form of debating, but White has people convinced that formal debates are a Biblical standard and a measure of success which is the furthest from the truth. There are a number of reasons why debates are not always successful (which I will explain another time). White, however, uses debates as a rhetorical rebuttal to those who argue with him on any given matter. For example, when White “debated” Chris Pinto, when others ask about the fraudulent Codex Sinaiticus, instead of White (or his followers) answering simple questions in follow up to additional information that has come out, White simply responds, “I debated that subject” and, bam, case closed, don’t question me no more, bro. White points to his debates and declares that he won, and that is supposed to just end the discussion.

Frankly, all of White’s debates are irrelevant because the bulk of the debate is what he says AFTER the debate, and that’s how he designs his debates. This is why White would never win a debate with William Lane Craig because Craig knows how to exploit his many logical fallacies, and why White only challenged Craig on Twitter, instead of calling him or his staff where he knew he could have had a formal discussion about a debate. Craig had to hear about White’s challenge second hand. But White’s followers heard it long enough on his Twitter and his DL show that it was enough for his followers to help his ego by declaring “Looky, Looky, Craig won’t debate White, he’s skeered”. That’s really just how dishonest and egotistical this tyrant is.

Cooperating With Muslims, Atheists, Catholics, Oh My!

This one was particularly rib-tickling. At 32:20, White claims that I follow around URLS where his name is mentioned “anywhere on the internet”, and jump in the conversations to help Muslims, atheists, Catholics, “he don’t care”. Wow. Any proof of that? Of course not. Was there a screenshot? Nope. You mean to tell me White took the time the screenshot my comments about his bike riding stats, but didn’t gather evidence to show how I’m cooperating with Muslims and Catholics? Again, more blatant outright fabrications. Anyone that follows me knows that I have 4 major issues with White: Anti King James, Hyper Calvinism, Amillennialism, and threatening a rape victim.

In fact, I have even AGREED with James White on certain modern day issues like the gay agenda, and EVEN ENDORSED HIS BOOK on the subject. I don’t disagree with White about EVERYTHING and have no problem giving others credit for the things that they get right. Do you think White would have that same sentiment toward me? Of course not. I am mature enough to take the high road when it comes to certain conflicts even though I know my theological adversaries won’t always give me that same courtesy (like White).

Interestingly enough, James White endorses an anonymous account named “Hakim Ramallah”. Hakim, or rather, Jonathan Autry, gives the impression that he is either Muslim or former Muslim-which would make sense given that he was the one Ergun Caner sued because he was one of the anonymous sources James White was using for information on Ergun Caner during the time White was pursuing Caner for claiming to be an ex-Jihadist (and for the record, I don’t believe Caner’s story, either).

So why is White endorsing a fake Muslim Twitter account, particularly after he spent so many years attacking Caner for the same thing, not mention having the gall to accuse me of “supporting Muslims”. What a hypocrite. (Yes, Yes, White trolls, I know, “Hakim’s” level of fakeness isn’t nearly what Caner did. It’s too bad I even have to express that disclaimer since White’s followers don’t appear to see the irony and hypocrisy in just the smallest appearance of evil here).

The Gospel Is Irrelevant to “These People”

By “these people” White is referring to all King James Only advocates, which is kind of ironic considering that one of the most aggressive King James Only advocates that has written extensively about White’s erroneous anti KJVO views is a guy named Will Kinney-A CALVINIST. So while White condemns all KJVO advocates as cultists, one of the rebuttals I have to him and even challenged him to debate with me was proving that KJVOs are cultists when there are many among his own Calvinist brethren who are KJVO. So if all KJVOS are Christ denying, gospel rejecting heretics, that would include 1689 LBC Calvinist confessionalists like Kinney and scores of others (Brandenberg, Pinto etc…)

Independent Fundamental Baptists care far more about the gospel than White, we take it to the streets on a daily basis. It is White who makes it hard for us by criticizing our Bible, our methods, our sincerity, our heritage, and our message (which can be seen in the About Us section, and the above gospel tab, You Die, Then What? By the way, we have a gospel message on our website, where is White’s on his?)

Why Was I Going To Do This In The First Place

White asks a good question, why is he even responding to my graphic about the bike? His harsh reaction is what made it appear he had something to hide. Most narcissists react that way when you call them out over little things.

At first, White accused me of COMPRESSING the graphic. He later accused me of ALTERING it.

Of course, once White tried to explain the numbers, he had to back peddle a little, and lie. The stats I pointed out and deduced were from ONLY the bike riding stats. I was well aware of the other rowing and granny exercises that were part of the chart, and White knows that, it said so on the very graph he used. But that’s a common trick, show your viewer the graphic in plain sight and hope they ignore the noise. White’s numbers were still wrong. But think about it, if White had accused me of ALTERING THE GRAPHIC AT FIRST, why didn’t he attempt to prove the altering he accused me of, instead of crunching the numbers differently?

Oh wait, he did prove one point: that a circle became on oval because I had to make it smaller to fit the entire page with the other graphics. None of his followers blinked an eye at this. The evidence that I altered the graph (remember, he said compressed at first on Twitter) was that the circles were different sizes? Are you kidding me? How does anyone take this guy seriously?

And yes, White was right that the Gran Fonda was cumulative, BUT NOT FOR THAT DAY and he knew exactly what I was talking about. Although the stats were cumulative, I was referring to requirements for a one day event, and included those stats for the week. White even admitted that I was right about the weekly and monthly stats, but he attempted to confuse his readers about the total. I even had bikers messaging me telling me it was weird and that I was right.

But considering that one of White’s tools in his polemics trick bag is to insult people over the grammar or spelling (I don’t use spell checker on EVERY document I post, or 140 character Tweets), if he can dish out petty insults about silly stuff, then why can’t I! The bike issue was not that big of a deal to me. For goodness sake he posts the stuff every day and brags about it. He even spent about 5 minutes ranting about it in the middle of insulting me.

No Accomplishments 45:25

Well there’s a catch 22. If I defend myself from the accusation that I haven’t accomplished anything, then I’ll be accused of bragging about my accomplishments. Apparently, White sees treasures stored on earth as proof of accomplishment. So guess what, White can have that one, because I’d rather be last on earth for Christ than first in my own cause to be seen of men. I spend my days witnessing to people in nursing homes, and passing out tracts throughout Illinois.

This shows that White values earthly success over spiritual rewards. And if that’s the standard of Godliness, that I haven’t written as many books, or engaged in debates, then guilty as charged. I’ll stack the souls I’ve led to Christ against White’s debates, and let God determine who was more “successful”.

I Saved Lives Through Bike Riding

White claims that several people said he saved their lives by inspiring them to work out. This is an emotional argument against what the Bible says about bodily exercise profiting little. Note that I NEVER said that exercise is bad. I work out several times a week, but no more than an hour. Why? Because it’s all that is needed to stay healthy enough to be effective for God, and that is precisely what Paul was talking about in Timothy. James White like every other important verse in the Bible, he just cuts 1 Tim 4:8 right out of the Bible.

James White’s actually setting a BAD example that could RUIN others’ health. I’m not going to take up this response to show the bad effects of lactic acid build up, creatine and glutamine depletion, muscle, joint and lung damage that can occur by over doing what White does. You don’t burn thousands of calories like that without knowing how to manage your diet and supplements (and frankly, White doesn’t look like someone who’s burning up as many calories as he says he is, unless he is a very reckless eater: maybe he can do another show about THAT).

SNUGGLING UP TO “POLEMICIST”

This was an obvious snub at JD Hall of Pulpit and Pen. Now what White didn’t tell his viewers (which I only later found out myself) was that this information came from Tom Buck. The accusation is that JD Hall and I were conspiring together (how about q-ing that conspiracy music White references a few minutes prior!) to “take down” other people. JD Hall and I have never talked, and I have sent him probably a few messages from Twitter about links to SBC issues. JD Hall and I are as different as night and day on a lot of issues, but I agree with his position on the Southern Baptist Convention. Because I have retweeted some of Hall’s articles on gay affirming, abortion isn’t murder defending SBCers that Hall has exposed, I’m now “yoking” with “a certain polemicist”.

However, all that White accused me of came from a second hand source that provided no proof. When I asked Tom Buck to show proof on Twitter, he simply said “God knows and you know”. That’s the age-old “you know what you did” tactic when you know you can’t prove what you said. Yet White ran with it anyway.

“I AM DOING THIS BECAUSE MY TWITTER WAS SUSPENDED” 51:-00

Now White followers,  THINK THIS THROUGH FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE. If White is accusing me of having his Twitter account suspended BECAUSE of his tweet threatening to expose me, THEN HIS PROGRAM COULD NOT HAVE BEEN BASED ON THE TWITTER SUSPENSION OVER SOMETHING HE’D ALREADY THREATENED TO DO ANYWAY!!!! Do you folks get that? White had already posted that he was going to do a live show attacking me on March 8, which he posted on March 6. But at 51:00, he says that the REASON he is doing the show is because I got his Twitter account suspended, which didn’t happen until March 9, his threats were March 6.

Unbelievable how none of his followers caught that.

VILE THINGS ON HIS TWITTER FEED

If White has us blocked, then what “vile things” on my Twitter feed is he referring to? Screenshot? Proof? Reference? Example? Link? Nothing. He and his followers accused me with absolutely nothing to show for it.

The only thing that White has ever specifically mentioned as being “vile” is our posting of what his own sister, Patty Bonds, accused him of, which was that he was aggressive and threatening to her when she exposed their father for molesting her. Below is the screenshot we took of her comments on her blog, Abbas Little Girl, before she locked it after James White basically accused her of making the story up as part of a Catholic conspiracy against him. In other words, because she’s now a Catholic, she deserved to be raped. (And yes, this is a very personal issue with me).

White can not argue that a person deserves to get raped because it’s part of his theology (God ordains rape of children):

White threatens his own sister over exposing a pedophile and WE are the “vile” ones?

GEORGE B WINER ISSUE

This is the real issue. White uses every opportunity he can to vilify King James Only advocates by making us look like extremists. By the time you get to the real story, he has you hating me so much you believe anything he says when he gets to his contention.

White NEVER ANSWERED THE ANACHRONISM. He simply backed up, and said in a very general way, “well back 3 pages, it’s talking about Titus 2:13 [I know] and anyone who reads this knows what it’s talking about”. Hello? Anybody home? That’s not an answer. The problem is White has misquoted Robertson and laid the blame for the King James translators on their mistranslating Titus 2:13 (and other places where the GSR rule “applies”. It’s actually used quite randomly, and there’s places where modern versions don’t apply it consistently themselves, but White ignorantly uses the GSR to claim that the KJV undermines the deity of Christ, when it’s clearly the other way around and he knows it. If you believe White’s tripe about the GSR, then God allowed the church to misrepresent the deity of Christ in Titus 2:13 for 1800 years). White knows he goofed. White even defended his comment within the comment itself by claiming that “scholars did not want to fly in HIS FACE”. Again, how could the King James translators, and even up the the 1769 Blayney edition of the 1611 AV (which is the standard now), flown in the face of a man who wasn’t even born until 1789?? WHITE NEVER ANSWERED THIS but did his typical politician song and dance. White knows full well that the last edition of the KJV, and the very edition he attacks most is the 1769 Blayney edition, so he couldn’t have been referring to any AV scholars after 1769. Yet his implication is that all scholars from 1611-1769 were afraid to fly in the face of a man that wasn’t even born yet. Instead of admitting his research was sloppy, or he simply made a mistake, he dodged it. However, this is the same criteria of which he attacked Gail Riplinger on. If her mistakes make her unreliable, then so should White’s.

 

Part 2 Later This Week

 

By the way, the day before White’s show, we posted exactly what he was going to say before he said it. He didn’t disappoint!

 

 

 

 

Did God “Ordain” and “Decree” Heresy?

James A. ThM, PhD a/b/t

Calvinist Colin Maxwell posted a photo with comment on 1 Corinthians 11:19 (from the Geneva Bible) insinuating that God “decreed” heresy among believers. This is a gross distortion of the Bible and demonstrates the problem with Calvinist eisegesis and how they redefine simple etymology.

First of all, we’ll deal with what Paul did NOT say. Let’s put this quote in context from the King James Version:

Now in this that I declare unto you I praise you not, that ye come together not for the better, but for the worse.

¹⁸ For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it.

¹⁹ For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

²⁰ When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord’s supper.

²¹ For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper: and one is hungry, and another is drunken.” I Corinthians 11:17-21.

Paul did NOT say God “decreed” this, that is Calvinist Gnostic speak for anything they want to blame God for as the cause of evil that He uses for His purposes (see our article on The Decrees of God). Furthermore, the word “must” does not mean “decree” or “ordain” or “caused”.

What it does say.

If I walk into a room and smell smoke, then my conclusion is that there must be a fire (Where there’s smoke there’s fire). This does not mean that fire is necessarily there for some preordained purpose (formal cause). This confuses the efficient cause with the instrumental cause of the event. In this case, the fire is the instrumental cause of the smoke (that through which the smoke arose) it is not the efficient cause of the smoke (that by which the smoke arose). Maxwell’s assessment demonstrates a fundamental error in the laws of causation. Maxwell assumes (as do other Calvinists) that God is the efficient cause of heresy, whereas the text shows that the self-determined acts of heresy and division were the instrumental cause and the efficient cause was the believers in error, not God.

Paul is not arguing about who or what “must have” caused the heresy, in this case, God, according to his logic. Paul is giving the explanation of why there are divisions among the Corinthians (vs 18) not that they MUST be there. Put another way, if I say, “You MUST be joking”, that does not mean that the person “making” the joke must make it or was forced, or ordained to be ironic. Clearly, because Paul told the church to be of one mind (Phil 2:1-5) to avoid schisms in the church (1 Cor 12:25), God wouldn’t ordain something that He proscribed against.

Another explanation for this verse are that heresies is often used to describe sects (Acts 5:17, 15:5, 24:5, 26:5, 28:22, taken from αἵρεσις). The very fact that the etymology behind this word is one that describes CHOICE shows that αἵρεσις is not and can not be something that is decreed or ordained. That’s like the Drill SGT saying that he orders you not to choose your next choice of action. That’s called a Hobson’s Choice. Nevertheless, if Paul was using “must” in a prescriptive sense, it would be the kind of division that purposely separates from those who espouse to false doctrine (Romans 16:17) so that other believers who had Paul’s approval would be manifest among the real believers. In other words, “You must DIVIDE” is not the same as-and holds a different emphasis than- “You MUST Divide” because the division and the heresy itself is an action caused by God.

There is simply no logical or Biblical reason to interpret this verse as a “decree” by God that results in and causes the division and heretical doctrines among believers in the church. God is not sitting in heaven talking false doctrine with the devil and then approving which of the devil’s ideas (or God’s since Calvinists claim it’s His decree) would be the best used heresy or division to cause God’s church members to embrace heresy. It’s bad enough that Calvinists claim God does this between believers and unbelievers (preterition), but to endorse this kind of rhetoric among God’s own children is preposterous.

Steven Anderson Sermon On Bruce Jenner Just Honest Calvinism

Dr James Ach and J/A

Recently on the Dr. Drew Show, where the theme revolved around “transgenders” with James White as a guest, Dr. Drew began the show with a clip of Steven Anderson ranting about Bruce Jenner, praying that Jenner would die and go to hell. Of course, it’s not uncommon for liberal media personalities to use the most extreme examples of professing Christians to provoke an emotionally charged irrational response against the conservative Christian crowds that raise the most objections to issues such as homosexuality and transgenderism. Although, Dr Drew didn’t use Anderson any differently than James White uses Anderson to portray King James Only advocates.

Let us first say on behalf of all independent fundamental Baptists (IFB) of all stripes, that NONE of us recognize Steven Anderson as a bona fide fundamental Baptist. He has virtually nothing in common with any IFB denomination, and has been openly hostile of every IFB minister and ministry from Peter Ruckman, Bob Gray Sr., David Cloud, D.A. Waite, Jack Moorman, Phil Stringer, Jack Chick,  to Fellowship Tract League, William Grady, Sam Gipp, Lester Roloff et al , and that’s just about every known “leader” so-to-speak in modern fundamental “circles”. The above names have sharp disagreements with each other, but Anderson hates them ALL. Anderson is an anti-Semitic, hermeneutically challenged anomaly that in our opinion at DRC is on someone’s payroll to make Baptists look like complete idiots (above and beyond some of the dumb things we’ve done amongst ourselves). In fact, not only do we deny that Anderson is IFB but have a standing joke that Anderson is actually a closet Calvinist.

But, to save the day on the Drew show, James White of Alpha & Omega Ministries gives the Christian side of the transgender debate. Frankly, White did a fairly good job at keeping the topic on topic in light of the red herrings and strawmen being thrown at him from the stage (including an unnecessary pejorative jab by Dr. Drew, “That’s what the Duggars told their son” when White stated we need to listen to what God says about His creation), and given the hand he was dealt against the clearly stacked deck held by the house, he actually did manage to accurately describe the Christian perspective of God’s design and purpose for the male and female to a hostile crowd. I think he could have been a little more thorough, but in fairness, he probably got more chances to offer what he DID get to explain than the producers wanted to give him.

White made it quite clear that Steven Anderson’s brand of Christianity is not reflective of genuine orthodoxy. We agree, but this is where we have a contention with Calvinism. We don’t think honest Calvinists can be consistent with their theology when condemning people like Steven Anderson because their theology maintains the exact same sentiment.

Here’s a simple question we asked Calvinists on Twitter: Did Christ die for Bruce Jenner? Not one single Calvinist tried to answer that.

Calvinists have long held that God doesn’t love everybody. In The Sovereignty of God, A. W. Pink,  wrote, “God loves whom He chooses. He does not love everybody.”

In a written book-format debate with Dave Hunt, James White stated,

Surely it is part of modern evangelical tradition to say, ‘God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life,’ but providing a meaningful biblical basis for this assertion is significantly more difficult.” Debating Calvinism, p.265

White also made a near 2 hour video on John 3:16 in 2006 attempting to show that God doesn’t love everybody.

John Calvin wrote,  “It is incontestable that Christ came for the expiation of the sins of the whole world.” Calvin, Concerning the Eternal Predestination of God p.148. R.C. Sproul stated that, “The world for whom Christ died cannot mean the entire human family. It must refer to the universality of the elect”. Sproul, Chosen By God, pp 206-207.

There are not very many exceptions in Calvinism when it comes to the question of God’s love for all. Those who do attempt to make an exception (such as John MacArthur, “Does God Love Whom He Does Not Save?”) merely attempt to move the goal posts a little down the field by deferring to a different kind of love for the sinner than for the elect, but the outcome is still the same, God didn’t love the unelect enough to keep them out of hell so not even MacArthur can claim his views are any different than his compadres. (We’ve addressed the issue of different kinds of love, and Calvinists usage of “rain on the just and unjust” argument here).

Not only do most Calvinists concede that God does not love everyone, but the remaining consensus among them is that if He does not love everyone, and didn’t elect you, then He hates you!

James White writes about Romans 9:13, “No matter how one understands ‘Jacob have I love but Esau have I hated’ , this verse alone should be enough to refute such an errant view of God’s love.” Debating Calvinism, p.268 (emphasis added). Notice that White contrasts “hate” verses any opposing view as being an “errant view” that God would love all. James White also denies being a hyper-Calvinist (a denial that is defended by Phil Johnson), so this view can’t be blamed on “hyper Calvinism” (although we vehemently deny that there is any such thing. The eventual results of infra-, supra- or sub lapsarianism and their various modifications are all inconsistent and lead to exhaustive determinism and fatalism).

Paul Washer says that, ” ‘God hates the sin but loves the sinner’ looks good on the back of a t-shirt, but that’s not Biblical”. In fact, Washer even offers an erroneous interpretation of Psalm 5 as a contrast to the universal love taught in John 3:16.  John Piper dittoes this sentiment in “God loves the Sinner But Hates the Sin? July 30, 2013.

Now what Calvinists will normally do at this point after you’ve proven point after point, with quote after quote (and I do have many many more) of just what their trusted leaders have affirmed on these issues, is attempt to justify their position while ignoring the fact that just 5 minutes ago they were denying that any Calvinist ever held to these views.

But this all leads to one final conclusion…

Calvinists have no grounds on which to condemn Steven Anderson’s view of Bruce Jenner.

Calvinists have no grounds on which to condemn Steven Anderson’s view of Bruce Jenner. Calvinists have always freely condemned any person that does not bear the fruit of the Spirit as a person who is either unsaved or was never saved in the first place (which is still unsaved). In fact, White and JD Hall have said such about Ergun Caner and Peter Lumpkins and several other ministers in the SBC, and White has even hinted that anyone who rejects Calvinism is not a Christian (and Hall blatantly said so). Certainly if they can reserve that judgment on professing Christians, is there any doubt what the Calvinist view of Bruce Jenner is? White has confirmed on more than one occasion that homosexuality is a gospel issue (and we agree, though for different reasons which we’ve addressed in Westboro Baptist Calvinists). Thus the only alternative is that Bruce Jenner is clearly not one of the elect, and not predestinated for salvation, but is in fact, non elect.

Since Bruce Jenner isn’t elect, then God hates him. That’s the only consistent position a Calvinist can take on this matter. They can’t claim “Well we don’t know” because they’ve certainly said they DID know about many others who were/are professing Christians (White has even claimed that *I* am unsaved) . Therefore, there is no meaningful difference from the Calvinist theological position that God hates Bruce Jenner and has predestined him for hell, and Steven Anderson’s comments that he hates Bruce Jenner, and hopes he goes to hell. At least Anderson is honest about his views as wrong as they are. The views of Steven Anderson and the views of Calvinism as a whole are exactly the same when it comes to people like Bruce Jenner. In both views God hates the sinner and wants them to burn in hell. If there is a difference, it would merely be that God, according to Calvinism, reprobated Jenner before time, and Anderson is praying for God to hasten His judgment for it in time. Calvinism continues to maintain its credibility by being consistently rhetorically dishonest about what they believe.

_____________________________

See also Leighton Flowers, Did God Determine Homosexuality? For additional thoughts on how consistent Calvinism would actually blame God for Bruce Jenner’s condition. Although Leighton did not specifically mention Jenner, one can use the same logic that Leighton used and simply replace the terms “homosexual” with “transgender”. This comment will make more sense to you after you read his article.

And,

Are You A Calvinist In Your Preaching On Homosexuality? From friend of Dr. Elisha,  Boaz Baptist.

James White & Paul: White Admits Grace Not Irrestible

Dr. James Ach and J/A

While perusing the Twitter page of Leighton Flowers of Soteriology 101, I viewed this interesting exchange between Flowers and James White wherein White asks Flowers if he believes that the apostle Paul could have resisted his salvation during that infamous event in Acts 9 on Paul’s way to Damascus. One of White’s responses is actually a little shocking for a Calvinist, and is a tacit admission that grace is not irresistible as Calvinists claim. But I’ll get to that in a minute!

First, let’s address whether or not Paul’s conversion in Acts 9 was an example of irresistible grace (“IG”). When Calvinists can prove that God saves everyone the way they claim he saved Paul, only THEN should Acts 9 be used as a proof text for IG.

There are several things to notice about the experience Paul had in Acts 9:

*Lord what will you have me to do?” Acts 9:6

If grace was irresistible, why would it be necessary for Paul to ask what he must DO? Shouldn’t that have already been taken care of through irresistible grace?

*”Who art thou Lord?” Acts 9:5

Since when does a person who is irresistibly converted need to ask who Christ is? Yes, Paul said “Lord”, but “there are lords many” (1 Cor 8:5) and Paul had not YET understood that it was THE Lord or lords that he was talking to (Phil 2:9-11, Rev 19:16). It is even arguable whether Paul was even saved at all during this particular exchange, and was not technically saved until later considering the context of Acts 22:16. Now granted, it wouldn’t make sense for God to call someone if He knew they weren’t going to be eventually saved, but one must understand the importance that “ordo salutis” (order of salvation) plays in Calvinism. (Calvinists themselves often use this exact same logic when explaining the calling of Cornelius in Acts 10.) The timing of Paul’s salvation means quite a lot considering this is used as a proof text for IG. It also shows that God actually DOES elect those for service those whom He knows will choose Him (1 Peter 1:2), something the Westminster and London Confessions reject (* See notes below).

*It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks” Acts 9:5

Notice Jesus said it is hard, but not impossible for Paul to kick against the pricks. If IG were true, this statement from Christ would be false because it WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE for Paul to kick against the pricks. (Kicking against the pricks was a farmer’s term for describing the resistance of a goat or cow when trying to milk them.) This is where we now arrive at James White’s surprising statement about this event.

____________

James White ‏@DrOakley1689 Apr 24

@Soteriology101 A heart of stone will endure anything if its love of self and its desires is strong enough. [Emphasis Added]

____________

So James White’s response to Flowers’ explanation that sinners rebel and become hardened in their rebellion , not because of arbitrary reprobation, was to assert that those with a heart of stone, like Paul, will ENDURE ANYTHING if their sinful self wants to kick at God bad enough.

WAIT A MINUTE!! HOLD THE HORSES! Did you catch that!

First of all, Since when has a Calvinist ever shown the Bible offers a DEGREE OF RESISTANCE? Either you are hardened from eternity from ever choosing God (whether by deliberate choice of God or “passing over”, the results are the same) or you have absolute freedom to choose. But in this case, we are talking about someone whom Calvinists claim was elected unto salvation. How then can it be said that Paul’s heart of stone caused his resistance if grace is irresistible? If grace can not be resisted, does it really matter HOW HARD Paul’s heart was? If grace was as irresistible as White claims, then Paul wouldn’t have and couldn’t have “endured” in a Jacob vs Angel of the LORD (Genesis 32) style battle. If Paul truly fought until he couldn’t fight anymore, THAT’S EVIDENCE OF HIS RESISTANCE. White’s response has just earned him a trip to the ER to repair his foot from a self-inflicted bullet wound.

Paul’s Testimony

There is also Paul’s own testimony to King Agrippa in Acts 26:19 “Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision”. Paul’s own version of his testimony shows that he very well could have disobeyed Christ, otherwise claiming that he was not DISobedient would be meaningless.

Some Calvinists rely on Galatians 1:15 where Paul utters that he was separated from his mother’s womb and called by God’s grace as proof of irresistible grace, but Paul is not describing his salvation experience but what God called him for, which was to be a light to the Gentiles: “To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood” Galatians 1:16.

Those involved in this conversation raised the issue of Jonah as similar to Paul’s conversion. However, Jonah was already a saved man. Thus God did not have Jonah swallowed to saved Jonah, but to save Ninevah (an entire article can also be written on how the story of Jonah completely debunks Calvinist compatibilism and election from Jonah chapter 3:7-11 alone). God imposed a COMPELLING action upon Jonah FOR SERVICE (Matt 12:41, Luke 11:32), not an IRRESISTIBLE one for salvation. God imposed a COMPELLING action upon Paul FOR SERVICE, not an IRRESISTIBLE one for salvation.

Paul’s encounter with Christ was certainly unique. Nevertheless, something should be kept in mind. Such unique encounters are the exceptions, not the normal means God uses on a regular basis. That is an important fact to remember when attempting to use exceptions to include an entire class. In other words, you can’t use Paul’s exceptional encounter as the example of how God saves everyone even if Paul was converted the instant he was blinded (which again, the evidence shows that he WASN’T..not yet). I have yet to encounter any honest Calvinist who has testified that their conversion included bright lights followed by 3 days of blindness and a visible sighting (1 Cor 15:8) of the Lord Jesus Christ.

James White asked “So God would have had to go to Plan B or C”. Well James…YES! That’s exactly what He DID do when Jerusalem as a whole rejected Him (Matthew 23:27-29), He went to plan B and SENT IT TO THE GENTILES TO PROVOKE THE JEWS TO JEALOUSY! Romans 11:11-14.

_______________________________________

* “II. Although God knows whatsoever may or can come to pass upon all supposed conditions;yet has He not decreed anything because He foresaw it as future, or as that which would come to pass upon such conditions.” Westminster Confession, Of God’s Eternal Decree, Chapter III, Section II.

Was Jack Hyles a Calvinist?

 James A. ThM

Jack Hyles a Calvinist? LOL: Colin Maxwell Does It Again #oldpaths

Recently we exposed Colin Maxwell’s lying attempts to turn historically popular revivalists into Calvinists, and this week, he went one step further; trying to make JACK HYLES into a Calvinist!

Now those who’ve known me for a while know that I am not the biggest fan of Jack Hyles. Some of my greatest friends still love Brother Hyles and we just agree to disagree on some issues. I *am* however a fan of John Wilkerson and am thankful how God has used him at FBC of Hammond. But whatever faux pas Hyles had (whether proven or UNPROVEN gossip), he most certainly was no fan of Calvinism. In fact, he has entire sermons dedicated to labeling Calvinism as “the ENEMY OF SOUL WINNING” That’s hardly the way a person who is supposed to have a love for John Calvin would describe Calvinism.

So what then did Jack Hyles mean by the out-of-context quote offered by Maxwell?

“The Presbyterian Seminaries say ‘The Bible isn’t the word of God’, but John Calvin believed it, and they had the fire! John Knox and others believed it”.

Is this evidence that Jack Hyles supported John Calvin?

First of all, Jack Hyles never preached a sermon called “The King James Bible Defended” so right off the bat, Maxwell is quoting someone else who is quoting Hyles out of context. One thing about Maxwell is he OFTEN takes quotes out of context, and never deals with the views of the person he quotes that clearly show the opposite. For example, to prove DL Moody was a Calvinist, Maxwell will quote another Calvinist who claimed Moody was a Calvinist without dealing with what Moody himself actually said about Calvinism. It’s a very disingenuous cherry picking method. It’s one thing to show an inconsistency in what someone claims or believes, quite another to take an apparent contradiction and turn it into a proof text for your own propaganda.

What is the subject Hyles is dealing with here? It’s BIBLE VERSIONS. Even Maxwell’s own church claims to be KJVO and we don’t fault them for that 🙂 John Calvin and John Knox at least had the sense to discriminate between MOST of the corrupted manuscripts back then although they were often hit and miss when it came to occasionally reverting to the LXX or an Alexandrian variant. That fact would not likely be known to Jack Hyles because he was not really a textual scholar. There are many Baptists and KJVOs who know THAT they believe the KJV is the right version without actually having the exhaustive textual background to know WHY. But,that also applies to those who criticize the KJVO as well position for the modern version only view. They may quote James White on anything anti KJVO, but when attempting to argue with someone knowledgeable about White’s inconsistencies and the arguments against the Alexandrian family of mss, would fall flat on their face. Thus while Jack Hyles had a sound logical approach to the KJVO position (which he expounded on in “Logic Must Prove The King James Bible”), and some workable knowledge of textual issues,he probably wasn’t aware of the areas where Calvin deviated from the TR. Issues like that are usually known only by those who spend a great deal of time studying that subject almost exclusively.

However, Hyles was expressing a belief that Calvin believed in the TR as opposed to the alternative Roman Catholic manuscripts (which at that time was prior to the “discovery”- or rather forgery- of Sinaiticus which would have been the Latin mss used by the RCC. Calvin used Luther’s translation, the Olivetan and Erasmus’ texts, all based on the Majority Text).

Now here’s the point of Hyles comment: Hyles was showing the Calvinists inconsistency in rejecting the word of God when their own “forefathers” from the Presbyterian church accepted it. In other words, “Why are you Presbyterian Calvinists rejecting the very same book that your own founders claimed was the word of God? Why are you today accepting translations based on manuscripts that your Presbyterian brothers rejected?” Hyles’ comment was a critique of the modern Presbyterian’s view of Scripture by showing the disparity between the traditional and modern view held by Presbyterians, not an endorsement of their Calvinism.

However, just because someone has enough sense to recognize the right Bible doesn’t mean they will automatically be theologically sound. Benjamin Wilkerson was a defender of the KJV and was a Seventh Day Adventist. In fact, many anti KJVO play the guilt by association game claiming that if you are KJVO you must by default also accept the views of the 7DA. That’s really what Maxwell is doing here: playing the association game: if Jack Hyles said that John Calvin believed the KJV ( the versions and mss that preceded it that were used by the Reformers), then that means Jack Hyles also espoused John Calvin’s theology regardless of any other of Hyles’ own statements to the contrary.

Would Colin Maxwell endorse the “LGBT affirming” Presbyterians of the PCUSA as bona fide Calvinists? I doubt it. So you see how association with these kind of critics goes only one way.

Of course, KJVOs are accused of also playing this game with Westcott & Hort, but they had blatant occultic beliefs and did NOT believe that the Scriptures were infallible. They believed that the Textus Receptus  made from the Majority Text used for 1800 years by the churches that was “vile”. Also a worthy note to keep in mind is that it was the scribes who conspired against Christ that kept the OT Scriptures. Did their unbelief nullify the OT? Of course not, but they kept extra care because they actually believed they had the Scriptures. The promise of preservation is still God’s, and He does work through human agents, but He works through those who believe that the Scripture is His word as opposed using someone who would look for any opportunity to corrupt the Scriptures. 2 Cor 2:17. Organizing their theology is a completely different matter than using the agent to copy the Scriptures and preserve it. The Jews from the BC era up to the Masoretic Text (which underlies to some extant all Bible versions with the KJV using the Ben Chayim, and the modern versions using the Ben Asher mixed with the so-called LXX), still believed the sacredness of the OT despite their unbelief in Christ as Messiah; it did not affect their faithful translation of the Scriptures [of course they added to it, the Mishna, Gemara, Talmud (both, Talmud Yerushalmi and Talmud Bavli, but they never tampered with the actual text of the OT, they were terrified to do so].

Clearly, Jack Hyles was not a Calvinist, nor was Jack Hyles a fan of Calvinism. When you have to be as dishonest as Colin Maxwell is to support your beliefs, you probably should examine why you have to try so hard to defend them. Again, why Calvinists like Maxwell shouldn’t have Twitter accounts, and another reason why I have continued to lose what little respect I had left for some Calvinists.

Calvinists Are After Your Church

By Dr. James Ach and Dr. Elisha Weismann

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I think this picture says 4: We. Want. Your. Church.

Hyper Calvinist* JD Hall creates a meme of a Paul Washer quote that claims that greatest mission field is the church. It probably never occurred to Hall or Washer that Jesus told His followers to go into the HIGHWAYS and HEDGES. Luke 14:23. True, that Paul argue with Jews in the synagogues, but only a Calvinist would think that another gospel preaching church is an appropriate “ripe field” because they oppose Calvinism. Ironically, the photo used as the background is of Bellevue Baptist Church. The reason that this is unique is that just a couple of months ago, JD Hall had conspired with a leading member of the Abolish Human Abortion (“AHA”) radical anti-abortion group to stage a protest inside of this church. Even though some of Hall’s peers such as Fred Butler, Tony Miano, et al, had opposed his antics, it didn’t stop Hall from sending his chief editor Dustin Germain from Canada, and an AHA leader also Pulpit and Pen staff writer, Alan Maricle (a/k/a “Rhology”) with the group to Bellevue, even though Bellevue is anti-abortion (not simply pro-life but actively opposes abortion as well as supports and promotes anti-abortion legislation and hosts numerous speakers on this very subject).

The other members that attended with the AHA group were clearly not aware of the actual purpose of the visit, it certainly had nothing to do with abortion. And, the little tidbit about this that makes this point perfectly clear is that JD Hall had announced the visit of AHA to Bellevue pastor, Steve Gaines (@bellevuepastor, below). For the year preceding this “visit”, Hall has complained about Steve Gaines, a lot; but never about his stance on abortion. So then why else would Hall announce such a visit from a radical anti-abortion group? And how did Hall know in advance before any of the other AHA members even knew? The answer to that is in the picture, and speaks for most of today’s Calvinists: their means of evangelism is accusing anyone who holds to a Non Calvinist view of soteriology as lost men, and therefore their church becomes a field for “evangelism”. JD Hall even told a college professor at Dallas Baptist University, Leighton Flowers of Soteriology 101, that to debate him about Calvinism would be “casting pearls before swine“.**

JD Hall @fbc_jd · Nov 1

Dear @bellevuepastor, I have some friends visiting Bellevue tomorrow. I hope y’all have a mutually edifying time 😉

Pulpit & Pen @PulpitAndPen · Nov 1

Eagerly watching Twitter feeds of @paperhymn and @Rhology to await news from #AHA in Memphis. This should be interesting.

What would be interesting about their visit? Why would THIS particular visit be any different from the other churches that AHA goes to? Because the reason and motive were different this time, that’s why.

Pulpit & Pen @PulpitAndPen · Oct 8

“The greatest opponents to Calvinism are lost men and the Christians who follow them.” – JD Hall

Now one has to wonder,  if those who oppose Calvinism are all “lost men” then how can there be any “Christians who follow them”? Nevertheless, the motivation and agenda behind these new radical Calvinists is obvious: YOUR CHURCH IS THEIR MISSION FIELD.

The sad, sad part about this is that we agree with much of what Hall has said about matters in the SBC, but there’s just no excuse for the kind of bully tactics and “theological thuggery” being utilized for the purpose of converting Non Calvinists to Calvinism.

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* We use the term “Hyper” Calvinist here to separate Hall from other Calvinists who are not as obnoxious as Hall,  However, theologically we do not believe that there is any real difference between the so-called “hypers” and whatever is considered “normal” Calvinism, and believe that the differences between the infralapsarian and supralapsarian systems (with all of their variations including modified sublapsarianism) is only minor yet all of which arrive at the same conclusions with the same consequences. The term ‘hyper’ has become a convenient cop-out for Calvinists to blame for anyone who hammers on the inconsistencies of Calvinism. Calvinists themselves can’t even agree to a definition of hyper Calvinist, and Calvinist James White, though rejecting Phil Johnson’s definition of hyper Calvinism, will not himself define the term. So as far as we are concerned, the term “hyper Calvinist” is really an imaginary scapegoat.

**. Here’s the 3 screenshots of JD Hall referencing his contention with Leighton Flowers as casting pearls before swine’