Always entertaining. Frequently outrageous. Almost certainly entering therapy. The infamous Jim West, scourge of the biblioblogosphere has once again shut down his blog and gone into hiding.
He’s done this before. Once, as reported on this humble blog, Jim’s blog was destroyed due to mysterious causes. At that time I suggested these possible causes:
- Jim’s cat was fiddling with the computer while Jim was off watching the game.
- Jim’s dog deleted the blog because he was tired of being ignored when he wanted to go for a walk.
- Jim is being held captive by the evil Chris Tilling in an underground vault.
- John Hobbins, in an Old Testament God-Of-Wrath sort of way, decided to smite Jim.
- Jim was struck on the head and is now sitting in a field of daisies, humming.
- Jim was kidnapped by radical Fundamentalist homeschoolers who are now holding him in an undisclosed location trying to show him how smart they are.
- Jim saw a vision of NT Wright saying, “Jimsy, why persecutest thou me?”
Source: Update on the disappearance of Jim West
See other bloggers who are sharing their grief/elation at this development: Jim West Shuts Down Blog, #1 Biblioblogger Spot Now Open?, Where in the world is Jim West, Has Jim West ceased blogging?
For a sample of the large number of posts I’ve written virtuously doing battle with the evil Jim West browse these posts: http://lingamish.com/?s=jim+west
[...] Bitsy and Rob too. Oh, and David Ker. [...]
David, What in the world is that animal in the picture? I don’t even think Jim could scare a cat enough to make it look like that.
It could be that Jim got tired of being abused by John Loftus and company. I wonder how many people have seen the relevant posts over at Debunking Christianity.
The amount of vitriol Loftus spews saves me from thinking that leaving the Christian faith might be a healthy move for some people. I suppose it might, but Loftus gives the lie to the expression “recovering evangelical.” No recovery of health is evident. He is a poster-child of anti-Christian insolence and hatred.
But there you have it. Perhaps Jim West thought he could beat obsessed, vitriolic people at their own game. Within his own Southern Baptist context and beyond. Now and then he came close.
But in the end, Jim West is a better person than that, as anyone who knows him personally will attest. He says he got bored with blogging, which I take to mean, bored with saying outrageous things that garner a ton of hits, but not much else.
He’ll be back.
I am having some trouble reconciling “He’ll be back” with “However, I’m convinced that this is one faked death that he won’t recover from. You can only cry wolf so many times.”
I suppose by making both prognostications, you can claim second sight no matter what happens.
For the record, the “vitriol” spewed at Jim West consisted of two things. First, that he does not have a credible doctorate but gives the impression that he does.
Second, that he posted about a young man who committed suicide as one of his “depraved homosexual” posts. When I finished reading the post I telephoned my sister who had just talked to the distraught mother. The fact is that the young man in question was wrongfully accused of sexual assault. However, it is true that he was homosexual. And he did commit suicide. There is no indication that he committed suicide because of sin in his life, but rather, it appears that it was due to the false report in the newspaper. (There are more details if anyone wants them.)
I asked Jim if he wouldn’t mind either removing that one particular post which mentioned the young man in question by name or provide the facts. It appears to me that this is Jim’s response.
I do not think that John Loftus had any effect on Jim whatsoever, but a couple of people did react to Jim’s post about the homosexual.
To lay this at the door of an “atheist,” is not responsible. Jim closed his blog when I asked him to publish the facts on the young man’s suicide or remove the post.
There is a little bit more on my blog about this.
I think the comment about the doctorate came originally from Chris Heard via Hector Avalos. It really can’t be said that this was an atheist attack on Jim West.
In the context of John Loftus asking what credentials one has to have to be a biblioblogger, I think it is worth establishing that many of the top bibliobloggers do not have any more credentials in theology than Loftus himself, although it is difficult to ascertain the accuracy of information published on the top 50 biblioblogger blog.
I don’t think that my comment had any influence on Jim either – to tell the truth. Someone else got to him.
I will miss him terribly.
Dave,
You are welcome to delete my comments from this post as you wish – if you think it will help. I don’t want to carry this on here, but I do feel that John Hobbins comment was unnecessarily attributing something to John Loftus.
Simple. He will try to come back. But he will not recover this time.