The spirit of debate has never been known as calm, collected, and cool. Usually in times of frustration or invigoration, combatants will trip over their own feet while attempting to gain ground. In the long run, their faulty logic and misinformation will not stand under scrutiny, but the gusto with which they present themselves may win a crowd in the present. This all surely seems to be true when we examine the King James Only camp.
First of all, it is admirable both that some advocates have abstained from much of the name-calling and rhetoric in their writings and that White has attempted to offer a balanced view of the leaders representing the group. White's assertion that Dr. Edward Hills' conclusions based on his own work would be quite different if he were not bound to find absolute certainty in the authority of one text sums up the primary difficulty KJV Only advocates have with variety. Their forgone conclusion must be that variation in even the smallest detail calls into question the certainty, and therefore authority, of all of God's Word. Unwilling to leave room for any doubt, they cling to one version.
It is noteworthy also that White compares this tenacity to a final authority with the Catholic idea of the infallibility of the pope. He also compares our modern time, in as much as this debate is concerned, with the days of the Reformation, when the Bible was becoming more available to the public. Now that massive quantities of Greek scholarship have emerged in newer English translations, the individual is responsible for taking advantage of the knowledge available. It is important to remember that no major doctrine is at stake among all of the variant readings, and therefore White's reminder that we all will stand accountable individually before God for our beliefs and actions strays from the content of the debate.
Secondly, it is becoming increasingly obvious from the writings of KJV Only advocates and from my own personal experience that anyone totally convinced of his or her opinion will go to great lengths to remain convinced. It is amazing to me, though perhaps it should not be, that a fellow Christian would knowingly deceive his or her readers by misquoting, misrepresenting, and mistreating proponents of an opposing viewpoint. I must wonder whether or not such writers ever have that "caught" feeling when they read detractions of their works. Then some are too proud to repent. I would have to question the correctness of these leaders based on these actions alone.
Finally, KJV Only advocates commonly practice an old flaw in logic called circular reasoning. It works like this: Say that you are taking a multiple choice math test. There are three suggested answers and a "none of the above." By assuming that the answer will never be "none of the above," your mind will automatically try to make the solution to the problem one of the suggested answers. You might even feel pressured to choose an answer that you think is incorrect simply to maintain your assumption. You therefore would never choose "none of the above," cementing your assumption in your mind, based solely upon your assumption that the answer is never "none of the above." KJV Only advocates assume that the King James Bible is the only true English Bible, and they base many of their arguments on this assumption instead of examining their assumption as a hypothesis in light of the evidence.
White, James R. The King James Only Controversy. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1995.
