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James White's Challenge--Peter Lumpkins' Response by Peter Lumpkins

 

   Strict Calvinist*, James White, the president of Alpha & Omega Ministries issued me a challenge—call up his Dividing Line program and let’s get it on. He wants to ask me some questions. But why would he desire to ask me questions? I do not count. He said so himself. Even so, I’m afraid it’s not me who needs to be answering questions but him. I think James White needs to answer a lot of questions, questions he continues to dodge>>>

Seminary Official Identified Who Cut Ties With "Dr" James White! by Peter Lumpkins

Doktor James White just spent approximately the first eight minutes of his most recent Dividing Line broadcast "challenging Peter Lumpkins" to "provide documentation of claims" I've made on this blog. Well, kinda. 

Much of the eight minutes was taken up by "Dr" White rehearsing all his accomplishments in debates and written materials. Another substantial block of the time was taken by dissing Ergun Caner yet once again.  A third block of the time allotted was simply singing the same refrain we've heard from White so often before, "you sir, are a liar!"  The remaining few seconds actually "challenged" me to produce the name from GGBTS who has officially given word that White will not teach there again.

O.K. "Dr" White, you're on!  You want his name, you got it!

But, before I reveal to you who it is, I'd ask one request. And, I'll even trust you'll honor it.

Deal?

Deal!

Here's my request: What was the official response from your own inquiry into my identical claim in June, 2010?  In response to my claim then you wrote,

"Now, I have written to my immediate superiors at GGBTS to ask about this, but since it is the weekend, I do not expect a response very soon."

If you'd be so kind as to post the response you received from your superiors at Golden Gate, that'd be great.

Or, if you think they need more time (weekends in California are notoriously long I hear), just drop me a line and let me know. I trust you. You need to know that.

Now, down to business.  You want to know the identity of the official at Golden Gate  Baptist Theological Seminary.

It was...

It was...

Doktor James White on Fudging His Teaching Assignments by Peter Lumpkins

FINAL FINAL UPDATE (I promise): Go here to get it.

FINAL UPDATE (I hope):  Facebook and Twitter is chattering about James White's reluctance to correct the public record that he does not teach at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. If White does not perceive how his never-ending crusade against other's credibility is definitively marred by his own apparent lack of concern for forthrightness, then little hope exists his apologetic ministry will have any meaningful future. Some are already suggesting a letter-writing campaign to officials of James White's future speaking engagements to alert them that James White is not being candid about his academic career.  I personally have no plans to join those who do. Nonetheless, I feel the same frustration as do they, and perhaps even more, because White parades around the country allowing the public to think he is a Southern Baptist seminary professor. What is more, unsuspecting students who enroll at CES are duped into believing White teaches at a reputable, recognized seminary when the fact remains, he does not.

Since the last update, I have come across more public but erroneous info concerning  James White's academic padding. Believe me: the internet is filled with it if one would take the time to seek it out. For example, White's main publisher, Bethany House, has this to say about James White on the author's page:

James R. White is the author of several acclaimed books, including The King James Only Controversy and The Forgotten Trinity. He is an elder of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church, director of Alpha and Omega Ministries--a Christian apologetics organization, an adjunct professor with Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary, and a professor of apologetics with Columbia Evangelical Seminary" (//link, embolden added)

James White has a prolific problem to clean up, I'd say. I appeal to those who support Alpha & Omega Ministries to immediately contact James White and demand he make the necessary changes to purge his public academic portfolio from the damaging, false information presently saturating the internet. No one benefits when false pictures of one's accomplishments are perpetuated, especially those who are Christian ministers. Is there any wonder the Islamic community holds little to no respect for White's apologetics organization?  Why would we expect Mormon educators to dialog with White when they hold recognized, reputable academic credentials but James White fudges on his academic accomplishments (not to mention his misogynous insults toward Mormon women)?  Why should Catholic apologists continue to dialog with him when he routinely insults their character and credibility while at the same time allowing falsehoods to continue concerning his academic accomplishments?  White may not know it, but this is really a big issue.

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UPDATE on UPDATE: I just received official confirmation from a GGBTS spokesman that James White *is not* presently teaching at the seminary in any adjunct capacity. 

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UPDATE: Thanks to an SBC Tomorrow reader, apparently James White is also wrongly listed at his alma mater, Columbia Evangelical Seminary, as a current professor for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary (Phoenix campus). From the unaccredited seminary website, it presently reads: "Dr. White, an ordained Baptist minister, is Adjunct Professor teaching New Testament Greek, Systematic Theology, Christology, and Hebrew for Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary at their Arizona Campus" (//link).

Will White now claim he has no control over what his own faculty profile says, just as he did with the Christianity Today journalist in 2010 when White allowed the article to suggest to the reading public that he was currently an Islamic professor at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary when he most definitely was not? Perhaps Doktor White will inform his supporters why he is not listed as Adjunct Professor at any Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary off-site campus when Columbia Evangelical Seminary specifically states he presently is***

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Well, my readers will be saddened to know that strict Calvinist* James White continues to allow his formal teaching assignments to be, shall we say, padded a bit.  In June, 2010, I noted on a post that James White allowed a Christianity Today interviewer to leave the impression he was a professor presently (i.e. June 2010) teaching Islam at Southern Baptists' Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. Then I wrote >>>

Vance Pitman Defending the 2011 SBC Pastors' Conference by Peter Lumpkins

  

 

 

    So far as I can tell, I was the first caulk mark on the board expressing concerns toward the 2011 SBC Pastors’ Conference. In a piece entitled, “Is the 2011 Pastors’ Conference over the top for grassroots Southern Baptists?,” I queried aloud:

"One must wonder if the platform Pitman handpicked is the appropriate channel through which the Holy One of Israel—the Lord God of Hosts—desires to breathe.  Understand:  God is God and He may choose to exhale His Spirit’s breath through any means He so desires.  The question is, do we have any solid reason (biblical or otherwise) to believe that at least some of the choices Pitman made will breathe life into Southern Baptist pastors rather than breathe death upon the Southern Baptist Convention?"

Now, in a Baptist news agency, Vance Pitman publicly responds to raised concerns>>>

Love Wins by Rob Bell: A Reformed Scholar's Review by Dr. Paul Owen

SBC Tomorrow welcomes Dr. Paul Owen as guest contributor*

 

  Having heard all of the internet buzz about Rob Bell’s new book, I decided to stop in at the local bookstore and pick up a copy.  It’s an extremely short book, and only takes a couple of hours to read.  It has a relaxing and engaging tone and writing style, and I’m sure it will sell well, given all the publicity it has received on Morning Joe and other news venues.  But what of the content?>>>

Reviewing Rob Bell's Love Wins by Peter Lumpkins

Not sure why my copy of Love Wins has not made it to my mailbox yet. Perhaps it is yet another delay due to production issues.  Anyway, I've tried to steer clear of the reivews thus far since I plan to review the book myself>>>

Funny Fridays: "Defending" Rob Bell by Peter Lumpkins

Seems my defending an elementary principle like "do unto others" or "love thy neighbor" or any number of other ways one could state a prima facie moral assertion about the hoopla surrounding Rob Bell's book, Love Wins, keeps catching the attention of some.  In fact, my posts on the Bell fiasco so far may be best expressed with something like this: one should not publicly present a personal review of a book when one has not read the book about which one presents a review. And, it seems to naturally follow from that: not to mention conclude someone is a heretic in the review of a book one did not read.

On Hell: A Helpful Bibliography by Peter Lumpkins

   James Davidson Hunter noted in his 1987 landmark study, Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation (University of Chicago,1987, 38), "…it is clear that there is a measurable degree of uneasiness within this generation of Evangelicals with the notion of an eternal damnation” while Richard Bauckham had already lamented a decade before--since 1800 “no traditional Christian doctrine has been so widely abandoned as that of eternal punishment” (Universalism: A Historical Survey,” Themelios 4 (1979) 48).

Indeed Bauckham quotes H.R. Macintosh from 1914>>>

SBC Pastors' Conference: Who Pays and How? by Peter Lumpkins

 

UPDATE:  Georiga pastor, William Thorton, makes a surperb follow-up piece which nicely complements my contribution below.  Entitled, "Since we pay for the SBC Pastors' Conference, how about an accounting of it" Thorton calls for transparency from both the Pastors' Conference and the Executive Committee concerning the gifts and expenditures of the pastors' conferences beginning with the 2011 Aspire Conference

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Through the years, I’ve assumed pastors funded the Southern Baptist Convention Pastors’ Conference. Via the offerings of attendees, the venue was leased, the platform was secured, and abracadabra! Instant Pastors’ Conference!

Of course, it was not really that easy. In fact, the President of the Pastors’ Conference had to make a serious commitment: if monies collected from the pastors did not equal the monies paid out, the conference president and his church were responsible for meeting budget. Such a fiscal commitment partially explains why historically only pastors with large churches were elected as president. Not the only reason mind you. But at least partially so.  The overwhelming majority of SBC churches just could not make such a demanding commitment.

Only recently did I discover that the Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention has for some time funded the Pastors’ Conference.

Nominal Southern Baptists and Exercises in Missing the Point by Howell Scott

SBC Tomorrow welcomes Howell Scott as guest contributor*

    Some of the Southern Baptist Convention’s best and brightest continue their on-going exercise in missing the point. The parallels between Congressional elites missing the point of the grassroots Tea Party Movement that began in the spring/summer of 2009 (culminating in one of the worst electoral defeats for the incumbent party in November 2010) and SBC elites missing the point of the growing grassroots movement of “traditional” Southern Baptists is astounding. However, that’s what elites do, regardless of their venue. They are masters of missing the point. And, when they do miss the point, they often try to rewrite the story or change the subject of the story altogether. Such is the case with two well-known leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention>>>

Ed Stetzer and Nathan Finn Respond to Brad Whitt's "Manifesto" by Peter Lumpkins

    A young, non-Reformed pastor from South Carolina--virtually unknown in the blogging world--dropped what apparently was a bombshell on the Southern Baptist elite last week, drawing out public responses from two well-polished icons from the young, restless, and Reformed community among Southern Baptists. Rarely does this happen, believe me.  Yet Drs. Nathan Finn and Ed Stetzer (at least according to Finn) raised a protest toward the young, energetic ministerial buck from South Carolina. Says Finn>>>

Judgment is No Joke by Peter Lumpkins

    A few years ago, I preached a message entitled  “Judgment is no Joke” based upon perhaps the most provocative words the Lord Jesus ever spoke; so provocative, in fact, some scholars deny the Lord of Glory spoke them. In part Jesus said>>>

Breaking News! I Agree with James White! by Peter Lumpkins

  I'm often accused of being obsessed with extreme* Calvinist, James White because I happen to log dissent with him on several topics (one topic being the scorched earth policy White maintains toward his critics). And, I must confess, while I would not characterize my pieces as being "obsessed" with him or his ministry, I find his influence among Baptist Calvinists in the Southern Baptist Convention both real and viable>>>

"A Church in Debt" by Peter Lumpkins

  I graduated from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 1990.  In August of that same year, I preached at my home church in Madison, Tennessee from the text, Romans 1:13-17. During the course of the message, I rhetorically asked "Are Southern Baptists paying their bills?" I then answered my own question>>>

Clark Pinnock on Eternal Torment & Millard Erickson on Clark Pinnock by Peter Lumpkins

   The late Clark Pinnock was one of the more provocative evangelical theologians.* His firey literary style riled his many (and just) critics about as much as some of his theological heterodoxy>>>