Dear James White: Thanks for the Applause. You Left a Few Things Out.

Last updated on: March 17, 2018 at 7:59 pm by Scott Eric Alt

Dear James White: Thanks for the Applause. You Left a Few Things Out. 2018-03-17T19:59:49-04:00 Scott Eric Alt

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Dr.* James White, latecomer to the denial of 33,000 Protestant denominations. (Courtesy of aomin.org.)

I tried to get the word to Dr.* James White (Th.D., D.Min., etc., etc.) before he took to his Dividing Line webcast to applaud me with a literal clapping of hands. I did: I sent this tweet to him and his producer Rich Pierce on February 15. I included Mr. Pierce because the good Reformed apologist blocked me all the way back in October of 2013 after I confronted him on his utter refusal and inability to exegete the text of Ephesians 4 in any meaningful way. But even though Dr.* White has now apparently concluded that I am one of the rare breed of Catholic apologists who deserves to be thanked for my honesty, I remain blocked. So it goes.

Here is what happened. Back on February 9, I published my first blog article at the National Catholic Register. (I blog there now once a week. Check it out.) The article was called “We Need to Stop Saying That There are 33,000 Protestant Denominations.” And we do: The number is much inflated; and insisting upon it distracts from the main point, which is the intrinsic scandal of denominationalism of itself, however many of them there are. Arguing over a red herring, especially a false one, does nothing to advance the real apologetic argument.

This article, by some means, came to the attention of the good Dr.* White. And he sent out this tweet:

I would like to applaud and thank RC writer @ScottEricAlt for this article: https://t.co/QDkkSVqjl1 Now could EWTN’s hosts read it please?

—

Now, one of the ironies to this was that, back on May 16, 2013, Dr.* White had said, in response to the very identical argument on my part:

This is absurd on a level that means there is no reason to ever talk about Scott Alt again. He has completely made himself unworthy of anyone’s even bothering. And yet this is what slavery to Rome does.

(N.B., this particular Dividing Line program is apparently no longer available from Alpha & Omega Sophistries—he calls it “Ministries.” Maybe Dr.* White has recanted. Who knows? I make the same argument in 2016, and suddenly Dr.* White can applaud and talk about Scott Alt again. Shazaam.)

Another irony is that I am by no means alone among Catholic apologists in disputing the 33,000 denominations figure. The National Catholic Register just happens to be a large platform. After all, it is owned by EWTN, which Dr.* White feels needs to be made aware of my article. They pay no attention to what goes up on their Web sites.

The truth is, however, that Benjamin Baxter, writing at Catholic Lane on January 8, 2014, also disputed the accuracy of the number and said that Catholic apologists should not be citing it.

And the truth is, in addition, that Dave Armstrong, writing on his own blog, disputed the number on September 4, 2004.

I tweeted these facts to Dr.* White and Mr. Pierce:

https://twitter.com/ScottEricAlt/statuses/699387979362656256

And yet three days later, on February 18, Dr.* White, in praising my article on the Dividing Line, made no mention of the other ones. (The segment starts just past 12:30 into the webcast.)

What Dr.* White did do was to highlight his wery own longstanding refutation of the number 33,000.

How far back do we have to go to find our documentation of this reality on our Web site? I don’t remember what the year was, but it’s been a long time. Probably about a decade now.

In fact—for Dave Armstrong checked—the earliest such article at Alpha & Omega Sophistries is dated August 22, 2007. (Find it here.) And yet nowhere can I find Dr.* White acknowledging that Mr. Armstrong had rejected the number a full three years before that.

In fact, as part of praising me, Dr.* White took a swipe the whole lot of remaining Catholic apologists.

This utterly meaningless number has been repeated over and over again, ad nauseam, on the Coming Home Network, by EWTN, by Tim Staples, and the guy with the funny hat who goes over to Israel [Steve Ray], and all sorts of folks like that. They just repeat it ad nauseam. And I can guarantee you, Scott Eric Alt will hear them repeating it over and over again in the future, too. It’s like reflex; they can’t stop. It’s so much a part of their DNA that I just don’t think they can stop. They will keep repeating it; they really will; they really will.

But if Dr.* White wants to take note of Catholic apologists who reject the number, and thank me, then he should devote a Dividing Line episode to thanking Benjamin Baxter and Dave Armstrong, and noting also that Mr. Armstrong beat him to it. While he is at it, he might say some good words for Patrick Madrid, who also noted that my article at the Register was correct.

While he is at it, he might also spend some time discussing Eph. 4:4, or John 17:21, or 1 Cor. 1:10, and explaining how denominationalism can be justified whatever the true number of denominations. Dr.* White likes to avoid that question. But now that we are agreed to no longer claim 33,000 denominations, we should take up the real matter. What of it, Dr.* White? Let us talk about Church unity.

And while he is at it, he should also mention a few things that Protestant apologists should stop saying.

Protestant apologists should stop saying that Catholics worship Mary. They should stop saying that Catholics believe in sola ecclesia. They should stop saying that conversion to Catholicism is conversion to a Church and not to Christ. They should stop saying that Catholics believe in works salvation. They should stop misrepresenting what John Henry Newman’s Development of Doctrine means. Speaking of exaggerated numbers, they should stop inflating the number of deaths in the Crusades and Inquisition. I am willing to document the falseness of all these claims, and many more like them.

If Catholics are going to give up some of their false apologetics arguments, then Protestants need to start doing the same.

***

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