AN EXCHANGE BETWEEN JEFF BELKNAP AND TIM HAILE

The following e-mail exchanges between Tim Haile and I reveal the difficulty I have experienced in trying to get brother Tim (as editor of Gospel Anchor) to deal fairly with my writings in regards to this issue. I believe it is important for brethren to know the reason for the absence of any response from me (to recent articles by brothers Haile and Osborne that name me) on the GA web site. These exchanges greatly influenced me to purchase and maintain my own web page.

From: J Belknap
To: Tim Haile
Cc: Gene Frost
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 1:53 PM
Subject: Reply To Harry Osbornes Article

Hope you and yours are all well. I noticed that you printed a response by brother Osborne to one of my past articles in Gospel Truths in Gospel Anchor. Unfortunately, I was not notified that you were doing so. Is that standard practice for Gospel Anchor?

I'm attaching my response to brother Harry's article and hope that you will allow me to answer him.

I was notified late on May 1st, that brother Harry Osborne's response to my GT article, "Differences in Application" was posted to the Gospel Anchor website. Unfortunately, I was not notified that it was to be printed. The very next day (May 2), I sent the reply that I had written to answer brother Osborne's response to my article, asking brother Tim to print it.

Incidentally, brother Osborne knew that I had written a reply to his article and even had a copy of it (originally planned to print in GT). In my original article it is very clear that I do not believe what he appears to imply in his article (that I believe "all applications" equal doctrine). Moreover, early in brother Harry's article, he states that I gave no names or reviews, making it appear that I had built a straw man in my article. In my reply, I gave the names and reviews in order to back up what I wrote. When he received a copy of this reply, he became upset and accused me of misrepresentation. After his complaints (I received a cc of the note he wrote to brother Smith), J.T. wrote me and Harry, stating that he would not print either article, since they had both gotten into personalities.

Subsequently, Harry submitted his article for publication in Gospel Anchor and this response to my article was published without even notifying me. Is this considered a fair and standard practice of Gospel Anchor? (I don't object to brother Osborne's article being posted, but I do believe that since it examines my writing, I should be able to answer it.)

My article has not yet been posted to the site and I have received no reply from any of the editors. Would you please acknowledge, and let me know of your decision? I will look forward to hearing from you.

From: <timhaile@mindspring.com>
To: "J Belknap" <jeffbelknap@charter.net>
Cc: "Tim Haile" <timhaile@mindspring.com>; "Dudley R Spears" <drs2081@prodigy.net>; "Gene Frost" <genefrost@mindspring.com>; "Maurice" <Deacon4411@aol.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2001 5:45 PM
Subject: Re: Response

Harry's article was in repsonse to your GT article that was already published. I will be happy to publish that article on the Anchor web site. However, if you want me to publish your response to Harry, then fairness will demand that I publsh his rejoinder to that second article.

I guess I have been waiting to see what you will do with Harry's debate proposition. However, I should be able to publish your Gospel Truths article quite quickly, assuming you and J.T. authorize such to be done.

Please proceed and print the revised article that I am sending along with this letter. Since I wrote the article and brother Osborne has reviewed it, I have made a few changes. I have also taken into account some objections Harry had to the article. I hope that this version will be more agreeable to him.

When I have written articles in the past examining another brother's writings (as brother Harry has mine), the original writer's response was always published in the same issue as my examination of his first article. I was never given the opportunity to respond in that same issue, and never expected to be granted that opportunity. If I had felt it necessary, I would have submitted another response for publication in a subsequent issue. I believe (taking into account my past experiences) that if brother Osborne's "Do All Applications..." article, (which responds to an article of mine), and my reply to that are both published in the same issue, that would make for a fair exchange and there would still be opportunities in subsequent issues for any further rejoinder.

I would like for brothers Spears, Barnett and Frost to lend prior consent with your rule of fairness, if you are saying a rejoinder in this month's issue of GA is what is fair and standard (re: my question sent to you earlier tonight). Since you and brother Osborne obviously espouse a very different viewpoint on this subject than I do, I would appreciate objective input.

However, if some of the editors are unavailable (due to meetings or other reasons), and cannot honor my request for "objective input," I do expect that if you are to add the rejoinder to this issue, that it be consistent with the practice you have employed in the past and intend to exercise in future issues when brethren differ on an issue in GA.

I request that you please print the attached (revised) reply without further delay.

From: "Tim Haile" <timhaile@mindspring.com>
To: "J Belknap" <jeffbelknap@charter.net>
Cc: "Maurice" <Deacon4411@aol.com>; "Gene Frost" <genefrost@mindspring.com>; "Dudley R Spears" <drs2081@prodigy.net>
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2001 11:11 AM
Subject: Re: Response

Thank you for responding. One question. Are you saying that fairness demands that you put brother Osborne's rejoinder in the same issue or a subsequent one?

Tim here - Web based magazines are not bound by these limitations. All of the articles will be hyper-linked and group listed. All I meant was that, with your and J.T.'s permission, I will gladly print your original article to which Harry replied. But for me to print your response to Harry, you must be prepared for me to print his rejoinder. That will amount to a total of four(4) articles: 2 by you, and 2 by Harry. If that isn't fair, then I don't know the definition of "fair."

By the way, if you want me to publish you GT article, please send it to me in MS Word format.

Are you telling me that you don't want me to publish your March, 2001 "Differences in Application" Gospel Truths article that Harry was responding to?

I have noticed that you still haven't posted my articles (everything you needed) that I sent you yesterday. I was wondering when I can expect to see it?

"Brother Tim, I have noticed that you still haven't posted my articles (everything you needed) that I sent you yesterday. I was wondering when I can expect to see it?"

Maybe you need to hit your "Refresh" button once you return to the GA web site. I had your article on "Differences in Application" on the Gospel Anchor web site by 10:00 yesterday (Tuesday) morning. I even hyper-linked it to Harry's article, and Harry's back to yours. (Had to re-edit Harry's article). I did this because I wanted to be fair.

There are always questions about procedure when using one magazine to answer an article that appeared in another. However, in the past, at one time or another, (ALL) of the Gospel Anchor owners have answered articles in other publications without reproducing the entire article being answered. I have noticed that you have been a part of that same practice as well. Therefore, you have NO BASIS upon which to criticize the Gospel Anchor for its practice. To do so would be hypocritical on your part. Of course, from your explanation of Galatians 2:11-14 in your response to Harry, we may also need to discuss the sin of hypocrisy. You appear to believe that it is not a sin in and of itself, but is merely a difference of "application." You and I are not anywhere near the same page in our definitions.

Like I told you before, I will not publish your response to Harry until he has had time to answer you. If Harry doesn't have either the time or the inclination to answer you, then I will. I have explained this before, but for some reason it appears that I have not been understood.

I will publish your response to Harry when I have a rejoinder to it. I will not allow your article to sit in the Anchor web site unanswered.

From: J Belknap
To: Tim Haile
Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 6:43 PM
Subject: Gospel Anchor

While checking out GA all afternoon, I see that you have posted my "Differences in Application" article (which I hadn't even asked to have published, but since you offered, I accepted), but have noticed that you have not posted my response to brother Osborne.

This troubles me, as I believe my letters to you very clearly point out that the article I really felt was important to publish was not the article you have already published, but the amended reply to brother Harry's article. This is because brother Osborne misconstrued my writing, which leaves the reader with an impression that I believe that "ALL applications equal doctrine." I never said nor implied such and the rejoinder I wrote points that out.

Is the reason you have not yet posted it is because you are waiting for brother Osborne's rejoinder? If so, why would you not have felt it necessary to wait for my reply to his "Do All Applications Equal Doctrine?" article - nor even notify me that you were running it?

So far, brother Harry's reply to my article has been posted to the GA site for eight days, with no opportunity for my rejoinder. Since you mention you are interested in fairness, I request that you post my reply to brother Osborne's article for eight days prior (or however much longer it is before you post my reply) to putting up brother Osborne's rejoinder to it.

I would appreciate your expedition in posting my amended reply to brother Osborne's article. I will wait until tomorrow afternoon for your reply or the publication of my reply before consulting with GA's other editors.

(Since you did not print both articles at the same time, I would just remind you once again to please make sure that you print the rejoinder version that I sent along with the article you posted today.)

Most of this has been explained in a previous post. However, it appears that I need to take another moment to explain to you what is going on.

1. You wrote the GT article "Differences in Application." Me and many other brethren that I have discussed your article with, concluded that in that article, you denied the very concept of generic authority. My take was that in your zeal to answer certain brethren, you threw the baby out with the bath water and shot yourself in the foot. Harry did not misrepresent you. Your argument simply proved too much.

2. Harry responded to your article, but J.T. did not publish that response, choosing rather to publish my more general article.

Since your article had already been published, and Harry's response had not, I asked J.T. if he minded if I published Harry's article and he said that was fine.

Now Jeff, do the math! You had one (1) article - Harry had one (1) article. J.T. published yours and I published Harry's. After FINALLY getting VAGUE permission from you, I was able to then publish your article. Now, on the Gospel Anchor web site, I have one (1) article from you, and one (1) response from Harry. My farm-boy logic tells me that you guys are even.

This may not make any difference to you, but I published the wrong version of Harry's article. Due to his efforts to comply with J.T.'s formatting wishes, he had modified the original article, removing some of the remarks that were more personal toward you. I have respected his wishes in making those changes. You may wish to review those changes.

Harry is in a meeting this week, but tells me he will be working on his response to you as soon as he returns home. The only problem I see with the timing of this matter is that I leave for a meeting on Saturday, and may not have FTP access to the Anchor web site while I am away. If not, I will work on your articles as soon as I return.

As in my letter to brothers Spears, Frost, and Barnett on May 9th, I revealed that you first of all never even notified me of Harry Osborne's reply being posted to GA website. Then, you got my "VAGUE permission" to publish my original article from GT (something I had never asked), but you said that if I wanted you to post my response to Harry (the article I had sent for you to post), "fairness" would "demand" that I be ready for you to print Harry's rejoinder. I agreed, and you posted the original GT article (which I had not really wanted), but withheld the only article (response to Harry's) you knew that I wanted posted.

You then stated that one article for each writer in the Anchor made it "even" and was "fair," and that "I will publish your response to Harry when I have a rejoinder to it. I will not allow your article to sit in the Anchor web site unanswered" (5/9/01).

Then after you made sure brother Harry's article was left "sit"ting on the "Anchor web site unanswered" for ten days, you write to tell me that Harry has changed his article. Your letter below informs me that you have now "respected" brother Osborne's "wishes in making...changes." This news, I receive just before you leave town for a week and will be unable to tend to the web site during the time you are gone.

Moreover, in the new and revised version, brother Harry doesn't ask for "names" or "reviews," which (both you and Harry knew) was a major focus of my reply to him. At this point, for ten days of public posting, you have allowed an article that made misleading public implications against my writing. Now, by posting a different version of brother Harry's article you have made it inappropriate for me to properly respond to a very misleading implication that has already been read my many over the past ten days.

What is ironic is that you made a clear case that you were only interested in upholding GA policies and fairness," regardless of what the other magazines do. Now, you comply with brother Harry's wishes to use an article that he modified in an effort to meet the demands for publication in another magazine.

That brother Harry decided to remove the niceties he offered in his 1st version, I have no problem with. However, why would he have removed a statement which you had already proved GA had no problem printing, in order to comply with J.T.'s wishes for publication in GT? Could it be that he (and you) wanted to remove any opportunity for me to publicly reply with the names that brother Osborne, in effect, asked for?

I have no idea what will happen next, but it appears that brother Harry will be given as much time and "respect" for his wishes as is possible, while I continue to wait for you to publish my ready reply, as evidence of what "fairness demands."

Nevertheless, I have worked hard to modify my reply (attached) so that I could submit it to you before you leave. Obviously, this is the only version which is appropriate for you to post now, and it will be ready to print whenever you decide that it is "fair" to do so.

I hope you and yours are well. I am submitting this article to Gospel Anchor, in response to your most recent article on the web site.

(Attached article was a response to Tim’s article, Legally Divorced, But Free To Remarry on GA.)

From: Tim Haile
To: J Belknap
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2001 11:21 PM
Subject: Re: Response Article

I have a tremendous backlog of articles to do for the site. I will get to yours as soon as possible, however, it will be several days.

I hope you and yours are well. It has been two weeks since I submitted the "God Given Rights Nullified by Man's Wrongs" article, in response to your most recent article on Gospel Anchor (posted 5-28-01). The several days that you mentioned it would take to get to it, have now turned into weeks.

How much longer do you estimate it will take you to get to finish the backlog of articles you had to do for the site, so that you can post it?

From: Tim Haile
To: J Belknap
Sent: Wednesday, June 20, 2001 12:08 AM
Subject: Re: Response Article

Feel free to publish your article somewhere else if you are in that much of a hurry. My article did not mention your name. I feel no responsibility to publish your article at all. Your letters suggest that you are pushy and demanding. If you think that approach will work with me, then you don't know me very well.

I did not mean to push you or suggest that I am in a big hurry. (I thought that by acknowledging your backlog, you would know that I understood you to be busy). Sorry if I came across that way, it was not intended.

It's just that substantially more time (than the several days you had estimated) had passed, and that made me wonder if you still intended to get to the article, or if you changed your mind. (One brother whom I sent the article to for review told me that he doubted you would publish it. I told him that I believed you would, but since so much more time had elapsed than your earlier response indicated, I was beginning to wonder.) Do you intend to publish it, or have you decided not to?

In addition, I was confused by your statement about having no responsibility to publish my article because yours had not mentioned my name. I believed that it was Gospel Anchor's policy to allow articles in response to a controversial issue, when one side of such an topic had already been presented. Your article teaches a relatively new concept (what men should do when governments do not facilitate God-given rights) that nobody has answered. I don't believe it serves the aim of Gospel Anchor to publish only one side of an issue in controversy.

Tim, I do not offer these thoughts as antagonistic, but in sincere desire to examine these issues scripturally.

(Tim never responded to this letter, nor printed my review of his article: Legally Divorced, But Free to Remarry)

Please see the attached rejoinder I have written to the articles which you and Harry have written (posted to Gospel Anchor on 7/11).

The last time I wrote an article in response to one of yours (Legally Divorced but Free to Remarry), you replied that you did not feel any responsibility to publish my article on Gospel Anchor, as you had not mentioned my name in the original article to which I was responding.

However, the same cannot be said about the recent articles by you and Harry. I hope that you will publish it, as it would be in accordance with not only your own (above) assessment of what obligates you to publish such, but also in accordance with the stated purpose of Gospel Anchor:

".....Controversial thoughts of real consequence will be presented pro and con; we hope to publish divergent views on various topics. And so we envision for the Gospel Anchor a journal of wide-range of interests, including polemics, doctrinal studies, homiletics, devotionals, evidences, exegeses, Bible languages, religious history, examination of denominational dogmas, etc...."

I hope that it is of no inconvenience, but I noticed an extra word where it shouldn't have been.

Attached to this letter, is the copy I would like for you to post on GA, if you are planning to do so.

Perhaps you failed to notice, but I publicly responded to your article AFTER you had posted it to your website. You can use your own site to house your illogical and unscriptural conclusions and misrepresentations. I will not publish any more of them.

And by the way, if I answer you again in print, it will likely be to charge you with being a bold faced liar and deceiver. You charged me with allowing for a putting away in cases where the fornication was committed after the broken marriage. I had already told you that I did not believe such. Furthermore, NONE OF MY ARTICLES ALLOW SUCH. There was no way on earth for you to answer my arguments using scripture, so you fabricated a position and ascribed it to me. You knowingly misrepresented me. That makes you either a liar or so mentally incompetent that you have no business even trying to represent someone else's position. You owe me a public apology.

It is hard to know where to start. First of all, the main reason I started my new website is because of your inconsistent publishing policies toward my writings, and then, your total unwillingness to print the article which you (and Harry) responded to. That was what prompted me to spend my own money and time, to start a website where the truth can be presented and false claims and charges, exposed. Now you refuse the rejoinder that I have written to address the article in which you name me specifically.

The Anchor's policy states, "Controversial thoughts of real consequence will be presented pro and con; we hope to publish divergent views on various topics." (emp. jhb)

Your policy also states "Every writer is free to express himself as he will; and whereas the standard is loyalty to the inspired word of God, we do not presume to be the judge over the thoughts of men. Publication of articles does not constitute editorial endorsement, though every article will contain thoughts that will stimulate and assist in one’s own personal study of truth." (emp. jhb)

This policy displays a sharp contrast to your statement, "You can use your own site to house your illogical and unscriptural conclusions and misrepresentations. I will not publish any more of them."

While we rightly condemned Christianity Magazine for not allowing controversial issues to be examined, pro and con - and then their inconsistency with their own policy, in allowing one side of a very controversial issue to be heard (that of the editors), how do you differ in practice?

I do not believe that my writings are illogical, nor that they misrepresent what has been written and said. If, as your policy states, you do not presume to be the "judge," then why not let the reader decide for himself whether what I have written is "illogical" and "misrepresent(s)?"

Now, in regards to your charge of my being a "bold face liar and deceiver," the burden of proof is upon you. Although you deny that your articles "ALLOW SUCH" (for one to "put away" "in cases where the fornication was committed after the broken marriage"), I believe that they do allow such, and can find several quotes that imply it. It seems to me, that we do not agree as to when a marriage is "broken" (as is evidenced by your denial of the civil authorities' power). If you do choose to "answer again in print," I plan to supply evidence from both of our writings to show such.

From: "J Belknap" <jeffbelknap@charter.net>
To: "Tim Haile" <timhaile@mindspring.com>
Cc: "Maurice" <Deacon4411@aol.com>; "Gene Frost" <genefrost@mindspring.com>; "Dudley R Spears" <drs2081@prodigy.net>
Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 9:42 AM
Subject: Editor of Gospel Anchor

Dear brother Tim,

I hope you and all yours are well.

Tim, I regret the circumstances that have led to this decision. Nevertheless, because you have refused to post my response to your and Harry's latest articles (examining both me and my teachings; as well as the article I wrote in response to your article, "Legally Divorced, but Free to Remarry"), I will be posting our e-mail exchanges on my website.

The absence of my response on Gospel Anchor (a publication whose written policy purports to cover both sides of controversial issues) makes it appear that I have no answer to give. I think that it is important for others to know how you have dealt with the written exchanges of this issue (mental divorce) as the editor who controls what is posted to the Anchor site and when.

The best way not to misrepresent you in any way, is to let our exact words be read in open view, so the readers can decide for themselves whether or not you have acted impartially.

Brotherly,
Jeff