After my debate with James White of Alpha and Omega Ministries, James posted his post-debate thoughts. (I have also written a few thoughts.) I was quite surprised to hear him make affirmations about my character such as that he “knew” I was “not intending to” bring the audience along with me, that I had a “really, really deep disrespect for the audience,” that “Ross didn’t care. He wasn’t debating for us,” that I did not understand what a text type was, or even “anything like that at all,” and so on, rather than expositing Scripture on its own preservation or demonstrating that even one quotation in my presentation, or one fact I pointed out, was inaccurate. I believe that the fact that he spent his post-debate analysis attacking me instead of dealing with my arguments may tell you something about how the debate went–I was very thankful for the blessing of the Lord in the debate itself for the cause of God’s truth. (Let me just add that not one of the thoughts James claims that he “knew” about my motives and so on, to my recollection, even entered my mind one time before I heard him make them in his post-debate analysis.)
The debate video itself, Lord willing, will be live soon; it takes a lot more work to get a video like that done than it does to create a video where I am just ruminating about the debate. Feel free to subscribe to my Rumble and YouTube channels to get notified as soon as the video becomes available.
You can watch my initial post-debate response, giving my thoughts on how it went, as well as responding to James White’s allegations, with the embedded video below, at faithsaves.net, on Rumble, or on YouTube.
My sincere thanks again to those who prayed for me and for those who helped in many other ways.
–TDR
Peter Ruckman was his own special case of bad behavior. I now put James White there with him, albeit in a different way. The manner in which he handles Thomas Ross is despicable. James White is such low hanging fruit, but those who go against him just won’t and can’t go as low as him. Peter Ruckman could do it. James White can do it. They both have a depth they can take in insulting and mocking. I don’t think Ruckman probably was lying. He was bad, but he was being brutally honest according to his view of the world. James White I can’t put in that category.
Again and again James White judges the motives of Thomas Ross because of his preparation and presentation. He does debating a certain way, different than James White, the latter who gloats about his greatness, having listened to the counsel of someone early on, because he is humble by his own estimation. Who says these kinds of things? I’ve seen evangelicals start to turn on James White and say things harsh about him and even to him.
In the midst of his recent A and O on Thomas, he calls Thomas representing a very little group. I’ve heard him do that before. He and other evangelicals believe that if they have a bigger group, that means they’re right. I could say they pander to the degree that they can get bigger because they don’t want to be small. They aren’t the biggest group on a lot of issues, but on those being small is a virtue.
James White also recently misrepresents Thomas’s use of Swanson on the hundreds of places in the Nestles Aland where there is no textual attestation to a reading. Thomas speaks of only 41 in Matthew and Mark. Not to one word, not to certain combinations of words in the reading, but to that reading itself. White could rest on his excuse that Thomas spoke so fast and used so many slides that someone could not understand him.
At the same time though, White understood Thomas very well when it is convenient for him to say so. People may not have known what Thomas was saying because of speed and slide number, but James White has deep insight into his motive. I’m not saying, by the way, that I believe Thomas spoke too fast. Thomas doesn’t think he did speak too fast and has seen raw footage to judge that. I haven’t seen anything yet.
James White deserves a comeuppance for how he treats people. A Mark Ward, who can’t stop talking about being nice, and how he tries to be nice, and others are not nice, won’t say anything about the bad way that James White behaves. I don’t hear any self-evaluation from the other side, true self-evaluation. They get a pass. Please, please keep it to the debate topic and stop using these types of characterizations as an argument. Please. Do not judge the motive of Thomas Ross when he worked hard like he did and sacrificed to make it to Tennessee. We can’t go where James White goes. It isn’t Christian. It would be easy to take him apart, but let us please keep it to the debate topic.
Thomas, I appreciate your stand for truth in this debate.
Thanks! Please pray that the video will be done fairly and excellently, as it is being edited by someone who is one of James White’s followers.