James White’s Innumerable Personal Insults Sent My Way

Then White, joined by Eric Svendsen, Frank Turk and other anti-Catholics in a wild “feeding frenzy”, thinking they saw blood in the water, mocked me for many weeks afterwards, implying that I was a coward and utterly unable to respond, and “melted down” etc. ad nauseam. This occurred in early 2005. One can see in the present instance how interaction with anti-Catholics so often (almost always, in fact) becomes personal. This is one of the maddening things for anyone who tries to actually dialogue with them, and why I have often stopped altogether, notably during 2005 and 2006. When you don’t regard a person as a Christian, and think he probably is hellbound, this is apparently how you act. Any hint of love goes out the window: utterly contrary to the command to love all people, even one’s perceived “enemies.”

The fact remains that White ignored many of my critiques entirely (i.e., before he started pretending that I don’t exist). He himself admitted it several times. For example, in a post of 16 April 2004 (“Armstrong Tries to Defend His Actions”):

I’m not the only one, of course. White has acted this way with virtually all Catholics who have dared to debate him, of course, denies that he does such things. One of his most ridiculous utterances along these lines was the following:

White wrote in a letter to me, dated 12-2-96 (since he had sent to his cronies a personal, confidential letter of mine, in an effort to harm my reputation earlier that year — long story –, I have taken the liberty to reveal his personal letters as well, ever since):

I shall now document, by many examples, White’s posts that are entirely composed of childish, sweeping personal insults:

3/28/04: Dave Armstrong [link]

It is good to know that even on weekends the ever-vigilant Dave Armstrong is reading my blog. . . . DA (as he is so affectionately known by so many) posted a long, rambling response that, to be honest, has almost nothing whatsoever to do with what I said. I normally try to avoid DA when I write, since he seems to have no end of time nor any interest in actually focusing upon any one topic in his writings. In fact, he has written so much that it seems to be approaching critical mass, and may soon crash the internet due to all of his self-congratulatory self-citation. Anyway, if you dare mention him you will get a minimum of ten times the amount of text in return (witness this situation), and there is simply no end to the verbiage that can be pounded out on a keyboard connected to one of today’s high-speed computers.

Be that as it may, what I said was 1) DA lacks the ability to engage the text of the Scriptures in a meaningful fashion, and 2) DA will use anything to attack the truth. Unwittingly he has proven the second proposition true in his lengthy response and the argumentation it contains. As to the first, I simply direct anyone to the “exegesis” presented in A Biblical Defense of Catholicism, his 2001 publication. The book is a monument to how to ignore context, avoid grammar, shred syntax, and insert the traditions of Rome willy-nilly into any passage you cite. Sadly, given how rare it is for anyone to honor the Word by engaging in serious AND believing exegesis these days, few in the pews have the process modeled for them consistently in the pulpit or the Bible Study room, and hence are impressed by even this kind of rambling eisegesis. DA thinks himself a modern Socrates, yet, his writing takes wild leaps from topic to topic, inserts endless (and often gratuitous) irrelevant material that serves only to cover the shallow nature of what is being said, and in the end requires one to possess the skill of nailing jello to a wall to be able to respond to it for its utter lack of substance. Take away his quotes from the CCC and Newman, and there would be little left.

To demonstrate this with clarity, let me provide a contrast. DA has published a book in which he seeks to give a “biblical defense” of his theology (it is much more of a defense offered by selective citations of Newman than anything else). It struck me this evening that he “explained” issues regarding Hebrews 7 and Christ’s priesthood in his book, and I am writing an article for a journal on the same topic. So, the best way to substantiate what I have said is to just allow the reader to decide. Below I reproduce DA’s comments, and after that, my own as they will be published in an upcoming journal article. Click here for the comparison. 

The second piece did actually make some arguments. I thoroughly responded to them three days later, and was summarily ignored. This is what almost always happens with White: he may get in one round of (semi-) rational reply, but if I counter-reply, he flees for the Arizona hills (either on foot or on his bicycle, if he has to split in a hurry to avoid a dreaded real dialogue).

The day before (3-27-04), White had written a post primarily about someone else. But when he mentioned me, it was pure insult and nothing else:

Roman Catholic apologists like Dave Armstrong, who lack any meaningful ability to engage the text in a serious manner, have no compunctions about grabbing anything to use as a bludgeon against the truth.

April 2004 was a high point in White’s apologetic career, no doubt. He was filled to the brim with personal insults. Here’s another entire post from 19 April 2004:

4/19/04: Wow, I Feel Sooooo Much Better

Proving that reasoning and refutation are but minor irritations, Dave Armstrong has reposted his mauled graphic of me. However, his rather less than talented artist removed the blood from my face this time (as I said, I’m so thankful and feel so much better now). And he has chosen, in his own inimitable style to post it on one of his fantasy “debates,” where he takes something I’ve written, works his wonderful Socratic magic (i.e. writes ten times the amount of material and hopes the verbiage will dazzle his audience), and puts “Dave Armstrong vs. James White” at the top. You know, it never crossed my mind, back in 1988/89 when I first started listening to tapes from Catholic Answers and started replying to their claims that someday I’d have folks like DA shooting blanks at me from long range. That’s OK. Anyone who took the time to read the exegesis comparison and follow up knows the score. And proving that all things work together for the good, Angel has indicated I should be keeping my eyes on my e-mail in-box. Never know when he might provide us with one of his artistic commentaries on Mr. Armstrong’s apologetic endeavors. :-)

Here is a real (and quite illuminating) classic: White’s 9 1/2 minute rant about me on his Dividing Line webcast (20 April 2004). I made a transcript of it. If you prefer to hear it in audio format, I have preserved that too. Like other similar nonsense, I had removed it from my website, in charity towards White and so as to not bore my readers with White’s unsavory antics. But since I was challenged, and it was insinuated that Venerable Bishop White simply doesn’t do this sort of thing, here it is, back again, for the record. The text below is a complete, absolutely unedited transcript for this portion of the show (lest I be accused of citing out of context). All italics represent White’s own frequent emphasizing of words:

Those of you who have been following the blog, uh [laughter], just, I don’t know, what do you do with someone like Dave Armstrong, you know? I mean, really, it is a question that you face, because, just simply by being out there, I mean, uh, if you read his materials, he’s very very high on himself and, uh, makes sure that you know how many books he’s written.

Of course, they’re vanity published, but how many books he’s written, and uh, you read the top of his page, and it’s [mocking tone] exegesis and history and apologetics and philosophy and all this stuff, and you know, in your heart of hearts, that this fella, uh, bless his soul, has no idea what he’s talking about. He’s read some books, but the important foundational stuff that allows you to actually make sense out of all that stuff, he’s clueless; he has no idea what he is talking about, but he writes constantly!

I mean, he must live on two hours of sleep and must type at 130 words a minute. That’s the only way that you could possibly produce the kind of verbosity, uh, that he produces. So what do you do? Cuz, it’s sorta, sort of; it’s really disturbing to me, uh, that I hear from people, and they go, “well, well, whaddya think about what he said about this?” And I sorta, I sorta; I, it’s really hard for me to go, “well, have you really thought about, you know, the foundation of this argument, and the background of this argument?” People need to learn how to examine argumentation! And see through fluff! Uh, see through stuff that shouldn’t even be called an argument; it’s complimenting it way too much to call it an argument! And [sigh] it’s just, how do you deal with folks like that?

I mean, uh, you know, he posts this horrific image of me, with an arrow sticking out of my head; blood everywhere, and tries to say, well [mocking, derisive tone] “you had that Angel cartoon about Patrick Madrid and you were stoning him!” Actually, you know, I think Patrick, not only, since he’s in Envoy Magazine and they use cartoons all the time, but I think he would be, he — if you really got him on an honest moment — he would have to admit that that’s one of the best caricatures of himself he’s ever seen. I mean, he looks good in that! He really does! He looks better than, well, I think I look alright in mine, too, but he looks good! He looks really good. There’s no arrow sticking out of his head. There’s no blood anywhere. And everyone knows that it was a part of the debate that we specifically talked about whether Moses would have stoned you, had you used this kind of argumentation.

[Richard Pierce, President of White’s Alpha and Omega Ministries] He looks better than Spurgeon did in the one with Dave Hunt.

Well, uh, but see, now Spurgeon was just a background thing there. I think . . .

[Pierce] Well, he’s also being strangled.

[laughter] He was not being strangled; he had a gag in his mouth, but uh, uh, no, I mean, he really looks good! This; I’m sorry, but Mr. Armstrong’s artist isn’t an artist. He has no; he shouldn’t be doing what he’s doing, okay? He’s not good at this. Angel is a professional. He knows what he’s doing, and he’s good at it, and he’s making a point. There’s no point in anything Mr. Armstrong, in his disgusting little graphic, has produced. But he’s got a new one; I mentioned last night on the blog, he’s got a new one; they took the blood off. [laughter] It’s still the same thing, and [laughter] if anyone’s . . . do you know what they could have done, and this is so simple; this would have actually maybe communicated something. And it might have been funny.

But they blew it. Uh, what they could have done, is, if you look at my graphic, the one that’s on my blog, the first one that Angel did for me, do you notice something about those little arrows? They’re little play arrows. They have the little rubber suction cup on the end. If they had just taken the Roman Catholic one, with a suction cup and stuck it to my forehead. No blood, and then just slightly change, the, uh, visual of the face, to one of surprise or “duh” or something like that, it might have been funny! It might have actually, you know, maybe you coulda made a point with it or something.

[Pierce] Yeah, but there’s only one problem with that.

Uh, what?

[Pierce] The problem is that it would have required him to have some original artistry.

[laughter] That’s true!

[Pierce ] And I would like to point out that, as the President of the organization . . .

[laughter]

[Pierce] . . . [clears throat] at the bottom of the page where that appears . . .

It’s got a little copyright there.

[Pierce] Copyright . . .

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Pierce] So in fact, Mr. Armstrong had to steal it, and modify it.

Yeah, well, he’s done that before, and I’ve pointed out to him that he shouldn’t do that, but anyway, that’s, that’s, aaah, whatever. I’m not overly concerned about that.

Um, but I am, the point is, that would have been funny; that would have been, “oh, ha ha ha”, coulda got a little chuckle about it, but the fact that Mr. Armstrong can’t see what the first one was all about, and refuses to acknowledge, [mocking tone] “you know, that was really dumb to post that, that was . . “, you know, he just won’t do that.

That illustrates, then, what happened in my response to his writings. When you respond to him, and I don’t know if anyone followed it, if they went to his blog — we provided some of the links and stuff — but, I went through, I provided, I quoted from his book, and then I quoted from the article I had written. And the whole point was to illustrate the difference in exegetical methodology. I have one. He doesn’t. And he doesn’t because he doesn’t know the field. He’s just; he doesn’t know what he’s doing! I mean, that would be like my trying to, to, write to a CPA and criticize uh, an audit that he’s done on a major corporation. I’m not trained in that. I don’t know the terminology. I don’t know the basics, the foundational rules that you’re supposed to do and why you put this in this ledger and why you put that — I don’t know that stuff. It’s not my area, I; you can go to school and learn those things. Uh, but he hasn’t done so.

And so, I just provided as an example. Well, he writes this response which has nothing to do with the text; it has nothing to do with exegesis; it just simply proves my point, but that’s one of the things [mocking me] “see, he just ignores this.” Well, okay, yeah, I did, because it wasn’t worth responding to! I mean, it’s just that bad! So, I did respond to it, after he said I wouldn’t, and so I responded to it, demonstrated that it had no connection with reality whatsoever, it was really really bad, and his response to that was basically to accuse me of attacking him, and all the rest of this stuff, which for him means, I pointed out that he doesn’t know what he is talking about.

When do, where do you draw the line? I mean, it would be so much easier to just ignore all these people, but the problem is, we’re one of those few folks that actually gets out there and we get our hands dirty. We actually take on these, these individuals, and show where the argumentation’s bad, and you’re gonna end up with dirt on your hands, and on your face, when you wallow with some of these folks, and we try to figure out where the line is. This guy [sigh], sadly, there are people who write recommendations of his stuff! I mean, you got Scott Hahn, all these folks, which amazes me. Uh, because you [laughter] look at some of his books, and it’s just like “wow! there’s just no substance here.” It’s just rattle rattle rattle rattle, and quote John Henry Cardinal Newman and that’s the end of the subject. And there’s no meaningful argumentation going on at all.

Where do you draw the line, because eventually, I have to trust that the people who are reading these things, and are concerned about these things can eventually go, “hey, wait a minute, that wasn’t even a response; that’s not even a meaningful argument,” without my having to hold their hand and show that to them. But, sadly, in a postmodern world, where, for a lot of folks, if you can produce a response, and spell it right, that somehow means something. The view of logic, rationality, the ability to examine argumentation; let’s face it, folks, listen to the political dialogue in our nation! There’s not a whole lot of meaningful discussion going on there! And yet you get people all excited; you know, I could play my Howard Dean [tape] here, you know. [laughter] It’s just like, “whoah!” People, people look at this kind of stuff and as long as your mouth is moving, somehow you’re making a point! Instead of going, “you know what? That person didn’t answer that question, either!, that person didn’t answer that question, either,” wow! you know, all the rest of that kind of stuff . . . it is, it is, it’s a daily battle as to how to decide what you respond to and what you don’t.

Well, on a much higher level; on a much much much higher level; uh, on a, on an extremely much higherly [sic] level [derisive laughter], . . .

Here’s transcript of his Dividing Line webcast for the next day: 4 January 2005 (listen to the audio for this show and see a transcript of it as well):

Quite honestly, I just don’t see that he follows an argument really well. He’s very sensitive; if you say anything, he’s gonna run off and accuse you of ad hominem, even though he doesn’t follow the standard definitions of ad hominem . . . A Biblical Defense of Catholicism. This is a self-published book, alright? There’s no editor in the sense of a Bethany House or something involved with this particular book . . . . The man does not know how to do exegesis. It’s a fact. I went through it and demonstrated that. But that book really didn’t have a lot of distribution. Well now he’s put one out with Sophia Institute Press. Now that’s an actual publisher. And so that means it’s gonna get actual distribution . . . so it would be useful to a wider audience to go ahead and respond to some of the arguments that are presented in the book, The Catholic Verses, . . . there is a consistent pattern of eisegetical misunderstanding, and an inability to deal with the text . . .

It’s fascinating to read the comments . . . basically, Mr. Armstrong melted down . . . it does not seem that anyone knows what ad hominem argumentation is . . . the reason that Dave Armstrong is doing this is pretty much the same reason that Dave Hunt won’t debate me. He can’t. He can’t . . . the facts are not on Dave Armstrong’s side. He can’t respond! . . . Dave Armstrong has gone into hiding . . . because he can’t respond anymore . . . once I stop this review and the dust settles, then everything will be back to normal. That’s my prediction, anyway.

. . . It is amazing to read what people are saying here; it truly is . . . If you don’t read what the other side is saying, you can’t call yourself an apologist, can you? . . . if it’s right there, and you are writing on the subject of sola Scriptura or against sola Scriptura, and two pages prior to something you do cite, a hole is blown right through your argument, facts are presented that are completely contrary to your own position, and you hide that; you say nothing about it, that’s not honest! That’s not apologetics! I don’t have any respect for that, and I’m gonna point it out! You’re misusing your audience when you do that. Aren’t you? . . . I would rather have had 20 verses that confound Protestants, and had serious arguments presented, than 95 fluffy pieces; 95 fluffy passages. Most of the time, these passages are cited, and there’s no exegesis offered. It’s just, “well here’s what the text says, and my Catholic tradition says this, and therefore we move on from there.” That’s not meaningful argumentation . . . if you’ve been in a serious, Bible-oriented, Bible-preaching church for the past ten years, you should be able to refute clearly and exegetically, at least 90 of these 95 . . . the argumentation is so basic and so clearly fallacious . . . clear, obvious, logical errors . . . Armstrong could throw his hands up in the air and say, “look, I’m not a scholar; I have no scholarly training. I can’t read the original languages.” But he won’t do that. He should! Because if he then said that, what would be the follow-up? “Well, then, you might want to avoid publishing books where you pretend to address these issues . . . you don’t actually follow-through on what you claim you’re gonna do . . . your refutation is actually based upon your own ignorance; you didn’t understand what they were saying . . . there is a club, and as long as it is in service to Mother Church, then we all just pat each other on the back and say “eh, that’s great; that’s wonderful” . . .

I don’t think Dave is an idiot. He’s quite adept; he’s quite the historian of the Beatles, for example. But that does not give you the ability to actually address the biblical text, does it?

. . . If Mr. Armstrong can’t defend his material, then so much the worse for Mr. Armstrong. Maybe he will move on to doing something else. Maybe he’ll recognize this isn’t something he should be doing. Maybe he’ll think twice before putting himself in that situation again.

. . . No one has even tried to document that I have misrepresented Dave Armstrong. They can’t. I’m giving the direct citations . . . I’m not misrepresenting him. I’m accurately representing him . . .

More nonsense from 5 April 2005:

The Most Pathetic Post I’ve Ever Seen…

…at least from an “apologist.”This just appeared on Dave Armstrong‘s blog. You remember Dave Armstrong. Yes, he’s the fellow who kept stealing Angel’s artwork, having a four-year old butcher it, and posting it on his blog. Same fellow who melted down into a puddle of apologetic goo when I finally invested the time to start working through his book, The Catholic Verses, and that after years of wanting to “debate” me in writing (but, of course, never in person). Same fellow who then took an oath to stop interacting with “anti-Catholics” (convenient use of terminology)—which had the not overly unexpected result of basically killing his blog, which then went into hibernation during Lent anyway. And so now what do I find but a listing of my books and their Amazon sales ranks compared to who else, but DA! Honestly, how utterly pathetic can someone become? It was bad enough that his work was shown to be consistently shallow, and worse that his attempts to respond were shrill and panic-filled (leading to his melt down and his unwillingness to even attempt further defense), but evidently he was stewing a good deal more than anyone knew to stoop this low. Of course, there’s a little problem: Amazon is not a major outlet for my works. My own ministry, other Christian ministries, and bookstores (including academic ones: a number of my works are used as textbooks in various Bible schools and seminaries) make up the majority of my distribution. Now, I don’t personally care if Mr. Armstrong does in fact outsell me: the Prayer of Jabez sold more books than I will ever sell in my entire lifetime, and it remains a vapid waste of paper. But it truly amazes me that someone who utterly lacks the tools to do the work he claims to do with such expertise continues to be dragged along by the rest of his compatriots. Just another example of “as long as it is in the service of Mother Church, it is all good.” What a contrast: we seek to be consistent in honor of the truth, which at times requires us to speak to less-than-popular topics (such as our exposure of the many errors of Dave Hunt). Where is that kind of consistent dedication to truth on the “Roman” side?

He continued the lies in the year 2008, too:

07/31/2008 

The funny thing about this is that Dan Pritchett is Executive Vice President at Logos Bible Software, which publishes a dozen of my books. I’ve never claimed to be a “scholar”, so that is irrelevant and neither here nor there. I am a lay Catholic apologist. But I am a published, professional one. White, on the other hand, goes around pretending to have a legitimate doctorate degree, when he has no such thing (as I have written and dialogued about at great length).