Did Dr. James White Commit Libel by Accusing Me Online of Being an “Apostate”?
by Kermit Zarley, a.k.a Servetus the Evangelical, posted 8/5/10
From September, 2008, to November, 2010, I presented myself anonymously and truthfully on my new website—servetustheevangelical.com—as Servetus the Evangelical, the author of my self-published, non-Trinitarian book, The Restitution of Jesus Christ (600 pp.; 2008). On August, 4, 2009, Dr. James White—a Reformed Baptist apologist and head of Alpha and Omega Ministries—began accusing me, as the author of this book, of being an “apostate” in four posts on his website aomin.org.[1] He expressly called me an “apostate” five times, and explicitly or implicitly accused me of “apostasy” four times. Dr. White did not know who I was or, ironically, that we both live in the Phoenix-Scottsdale area in Arizona.
Dr. White is a prominent Christian apologist, especially on the Internet. He has authored or contributed to twenty books on the Christian religion, its theology, and comparing it to other religions. Over the past 20 years, he has been involved in about 100 formal, public debates on these subjects.
I then replied to Dr. White on my website with some brief articles. One was entitled “Dr. White Continues Foolishly Speaking.” In it, I alleged that he did not know what an apostate is “biblically,” and I also meant, though I did not state it explicitly, within the confines of the Christian religion. I then cited New Testament texts having the word “apostate” and explained how I understand that the New Testament defines a genuine Christian believer. I concluded that according to the New Testament I meet the requirement of being a genuine Christian, so that I am not an apostate as it is used in those verses.
The New Testament has come down to us in the Greek language, and we get our English word apostasy from the Greek word apostasia, which means “one who has fallen away.” In the New Testament, this word is used religiously to mean a person who has fallen away from faith in Jesus Christ. An apostate is generally defined in the English language as a person who abandons or deserts his or her religion; but oftentimes, it is specifically defined as a person who forsakes his or her religion for another religion.
Throughout the history of Christianity, apostasy and heresy generally have been distinguished. Heresy—which is deemed a lesser offense than apostasy and for which Michael Servetus was judged guilty and executed—is the denial of an important tenant of a religion and thus not the denial of the religion itself. Whether a particular heresy is about something essential to Christianity often has not been made clear.
In Mr. White’s first blog post against me, after he accused me three times of being an “apostate,“ he concluded this post by saying, “The apostates are busily cranking out their poison. Who will stand in the gap to defend the honor of the Christian faith?” In so concluding, he implicitly accused me of being an apostate from the Christian faith.
But Mr. White later responded to my above-mentioned response by seemingly redefining his allegation of me as an apostate. He gave as an example a Mormon or a Jehovah’s Witness apostasizing from their religion. Then he defined his use of the word apostate in his allegation against me as one who has fallen away from the doctrine of the Trinity. Yet I had explained in my previous response that (1) the doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly taught in the New Testament, (2) neither does the word “trinity” occur there (much less as a designation for God), and (3) the Catholic Church did not fully develop and establish its doctrine of the Trinity until the late fourth century (three-and-a-half centuries after Jesus). So, all Christians in the first three centuries of the Christian era had never heard of the doctrine of the Trinity, much less believed in it. It is therefore ludicrous to assert that all Christians must be Trinitarian.
To date, Mr. White has not publicly withdrawn his accusation that I am an apostate. I now question if he has committed libel against me according to the laws of the United States of America in his repeated allegation on his blog that I am an apostate. In U.S. law, slander is the spoken word, and libel is the written word; both are regarded as defamation. Some legal authorities further define defamation as a written expression that exposes an individual “to hatred, ridicule, or contempt, lowers them in the esteem of others, causes them to be shunned, or injures them in their business or calling.”[2] Presently, U.S. courts are trying to decide if blogging activity on the Internet constitutes such written expression.
Defamation also has generally been regarded as a false statement against a person or entity which causes that person or entity to suffer harm in reputation. However, the Wikipedia article on “libel” (accessed 6/27/10) states that some legal jurisdictions in the U.S. distinguish between fact and opinion in libel lawsuits, yet some don’t, and that the U.S. Supreme Court has done the latter. In distinguishing the two, a false statement would be libelous whereas an opinion would not. Thus, if I brought a libel suit against James White for alleging that I am an apostate, and fact and opinion were not distinguished in that court of law, it would make no difference whether Mr. White is correct or not in accusing me of being an apostate. The only issue ruled upon would be whether his allegation caused me harm.
Defamation includes attacks on a person’s professional character or standing. U.S. law provides that a person has a right to defend his or her good reputation. In Mr. White’s first blog of me, he writes, “‘Servetus the Evangelical’ (an oxymoron if there ever was one) is seemingly attempting to do the Bart Ehrman thing: profit from apostasy. Make money off of destroying the faith.” This statement represents a clear charge against my motives, which White could not have known since he didn’t even know who I was. And in his second blog about me, on the basis of my book he accused me of being Arian in theology and offering many Arian arguments. In saying this, he obviously didn’t read my book. I repeatedly make it very clear that I am not Arian in theology, though Arius and I do share some common beliefs deemed unorthodox. Arius believed that Jesus is God, though to a lesser extent than the Father is God, whereas I deny that Jesus is God. All historians and theologians who know the Arian conflict well would deny that I am Arian in theology.
Largely due to my professional golf career, and less as an author, U.S. law assesses me as “a public figure.” Consequently, in bringing a libel lawsuit against Mr. White I would have the added obligation to prove “actual malice,” which is hate. That is, I would have to prove the defendant knowingly made a false statement, or made a statement with “reckless disregard” for the truth, about me. I think the latter would be easy to prove.
I think Mr. White should be more careful in what he says on his website. Falsities and inflammatory rhetoric are commonplace on the Internet. It fosters a hostile type of culture more than do other media or face-to-face meetings in public. Some Internet bloggers who are professing Christians like Mr. White are far guiltier of this demeaning behavior than he is. But Christian men who blog should conduct themselves as gentlemen, led of God’s Spirit in the fear of God, knowing that they will be liable to give an account at the bema of God and Christ for every word they utter and write, even on the Internet.
Libel lawsuits in the U.S. are difficult to prove, especially Internet libel, which is in its infancy. However, courts are moving in the direction of treating libel in the virtual world as in the real world. Most libel suits should not be undertaken except to vindicate reputation. Damages for libel, in contrast to slander, do not have to be proved, since they are assumed. All that must be proved of libel is defamation. Defendants in such cases should offer a public apology and/or retraction if guilty of defamation, and some state laws provide this medium as a way to resolve the complaint without further due process.
I think Mr. White has sullied my reputation with his online attacks against me, accusing me repeatedly of being an apostate. It is now one year since he began this rhetoric, and I am not aware that he has apologized for it, which he should do on his website. I will not sue Dr. James White for libel due to his allegation that I am an apostate if he debates me publicly here in the Phoenix metro area as to whether or not Jesus is God.
And by the way, I regard Mr. White as a Christian brother because he seems to sincerely believe in Jesus as his Lord and Savior, as I do. I believe that according to the New Testament, such belief is sufficient to make a person a genuine Christian.
[1] “Playing Games with Divine Truths,” 8/3/2009; “Nothing New Under the Sun: Servetus the Yawner,” 9/7/2009; “Servetus the Cowardly ‘Scholar’ Continues Playing Games,” 10/22/2009; “Golfer Kermit Zarley Is Servetus ‘the Evangelical’?”, 11/18/2009.
[2] Dwight L. Teeter and Bill Loving, Law of Mass Communications (Foundation Press, 2004), 140. Indebted to Albert N. Greco, The Book Publishing Industry, 2nd ed. (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers), 275.