Me and James White

James White is Reformed Protestant that hosts a live webcast a couple of times a week where he discusses issues related to his ministry. He's a very smart guy that I read a lot of while I was a Christian. I have several of his books. Many of them are thoroughly highlighted. I decided to call in to his webcast a few times and so I'm posting those conversations here.

Conversation #1
Conversation #2
Conversation #3

White is a very interesting character. He's often accused of arrogance and being mean spirited. He's called rude. All that may be true, but I find that I kind of admire him anyway, and here's why. First and foremost, he's smart, and to me that's admirable. Second, he is principled. This is a guy that's not afraid to tell others that they are on their way to hell. I kind of respect that. Many are offended when they are told they are going to hell, and some Christians in an effort to be nice shy away from saying what they really believe. Personally I don't mind being told I'm going to hell. I mean, what if these Baptists are right and all of us skeptics are going to hell? When you're engulfed in flames and molten sulfur in hell, what do you think you might say to those "nice" Baptists that were afraid to tell you what was in store for you? They should be warning us if they really believe what they say.

The other reason I like James White is because he is fair in debate. I've watched many of his professional debates, and though he is sometimes treated unfairly he does not return the favor. He doesn't interrupt his opponents. He lets them make their point clearly. They sometimes refuse to answer his questions and he still remains very professional. He gave me plenty of time (the first call went 40 minutes) and didn't interrupt. This is especially noticeable in Conversation #3, where early on he allowed me to talk and explain a situation that he already understood. He could have cut me off and told me he already knew all about it, but he allowed me to go forward and only informed me that he already knew all this stuff after I took the time to explain it. So he treated me very fairly.

As far as the conversations themselves though, I wasn't real happy with the way I performed (if "performed" is the right word). I think White engaged in some spin, and I didn't call him out on it real well, especially in the first conversation. But he's a professional and I'm not. These guys are good at what they do. I learned from it and applied that lesson to my calls with Bob Dutko.

Dutko however was not as good at allowing me to make my points without interruption, so I view him more as winning debates by simply dominating the microphone.

I might have more to say about these conversations later.