J. P. Holding

James Patrick Holding, also known as J. P. Holding and Robert Turkel, is an ex-prison librarian, cartoonist, minister, and Christian apologist from Florida known best for founding and managing Tekton Education and Apologetic Ministries.

Holding earned a Master's degree in library science and describes himself as "trained to look things up and answer questions." Amongst laypeople this is also known as "typing a question into Google."

Even though Holding is a Christian, he claims that he does not set out to convert people. Instead, he claims he is presenting facts and clearing up misunderstandings, such as Biblical contradictions and scientific errors. He claims to be explaining the history of Judaism and Christianity in a cultural context. However, it is unclear when reading his articles what this context is since it is not mainstream academic nor mainstream revisionist Christian. He claims he doesn't have to resort to pseudohistory or logical fallacies, but again, this is not borne out in the articles on his website. His answers are his own, which may or may not be useful for someone who is questioning their own Christianity, but the answers do not resolve any of the known conflicts in the Bible any better than other apologetic writers have done. He would accurately be characterized as a cyberbully.

Views

 * The Spanish Inquisition(s) weren't really all that unexpected bad (and weren't really Spanish, they were the brainchild of the surrender monkeys), and it's not just me saying that, it's these two books which I misread and misapplied. But since I'm citing two books, my ideas must be true.


 * Ed-u-ma-cation, and expertise in Hebrew and Greek, is stupid. I have software and not one day of study so nertz to your years of training in the language(s).


 * He disagrees with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theological position regarding baptism and salvation (as do we, though for different reasons).

Libel suits
His manner of operating led to a 2015 libel lawsuit in Washington State Court and a federal libel lawsuit in 2016, both of which Holding avoided answering on the merits by paying a lawyer more than $20,000 to seek dismissal for reasons other than the merits.

Holding's response website presents more details about the lawsuit, including original court documents and transcripts. Holding explains that the lawsuit ended in September 2016 with a judgment against the plaintiff and the court ordering the plaintiff to pay Holding $21,494.95 in attorney fees. Holding further explains, when he sued Holding, the plaintiff already owed more than ninety thousand dollars in debt. Some sixty five thousand of that was from other legal debts he has incurred over the past several years due to losses in court. However, he will also not be paying Holding that court-ordered debt any time soon, since he lives off disability checks and food stamps. Near the end of the hearing to award fees, the judge says, “It’s my finding that [the Plaintiff] has abused the court process to go after somebody from out of state, hale them into court in this state.”

Holding also provides numerous quotes from attorneys who opposed the plaintiff in past litigation, such as one saying he is a "serial pro se litigant" [and a] "known vexatious litigant who intimidates his adversaries in the hope of squeezing money out of them to 'make him go away.'...[He is] “simply untrustworthy and lacks any credibility whatsoever."

After the first libel lawsuit was filed, Holding dissolved his 16-year 501(c)(3) "Tekton Apologetic Ministries" corporation, and started up the "Apologetics Afield" non-profit. After the second libel lawsuit was filed, Holding dissolved "Apologetics Afield" and has announced that the tax-exempt nature of donations to him will now be due to other non-profit organizations he chooses to work with.

Some would say convincing the world's most fearless smart Christian apologist to fold up shop, twice, counts as victory.

Christian Doscher, the Plaintiff who filed the first two libel lawsuits against Holding, has filed a third libel lawsuit against "Apologetics Afield", which is currently pending. The basis for the lawsuit is Holding's webpages where he, acting within the course and scope of his capacity as director of Apologetics Afield, published unfair, inaccurate and even photoshopped quotations from Plaintiff's prior legal adversaries, similarly to the cherry-picked excerpts he posted above. You can download the 97-page Complaint, asserting 41 separate counts of libel per se, at Doscher's website, and find out how Holding's misrepresentation of what happened in Plaintiff's prior legal cases constitutes libel, and why Holding is not shielded by any "fair-report" privilege.

And for those who might want to know, yes, the complaint will be amended, adding this page as another count of libel, since Holding's isolated quotations from Doscher's prior legal adversaries (supra) gives the reader an unfair, inaccurate and biased view of what happened during the course of those prior judicial proceedings. To say Holding is a pathologically obsessed narcissist would be to say that the Atlantic Ocean is "damp".

Doscher's third libel lawsuit against Holding was approved for filing by a judge after Doscher filed a "first amended Complaint". Holding was forced to hire a lawyer and he will be required to file in the next few weeks either a "motion to dismiss" or an "answer to the complaint".

James Patrick Holding has committed perjury in court documents 10 separate times, according to a 170-page civil complaint filed in the latest libel lawsuit against him. Download the complaint here:

Tekton Ministry Website
The Tekton website has over 1,500 articles, most written by Holding. Tekton also publishes "guest articles" written by others, which he says do not necessarily reflect his opinions. Holding's articles reference everything from a criticism of Bart Eherman's Forged to descriptions of Hell, and how to get there. Most of his writings seem to argue Biblical interpretations from context, however Holding has been critical of the need to read the Bible in its original Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic, so it is unclear from which context he presumes to approach his apologetics.

Books

 * The Mormon Defenders &mdash; Mormons misunderstood The Bible and are distorting the message of Jesus. No argument there.
 * Shattering the Christ Myth &mdash; Argues against the Jesus myth theory.
 * The Impossible Faith &mdash; Christianity was such a bad belief that the only way it could have survived is by divine intervention. Richard Carrier was commissioned by some dude to respond in Not the Impossible Faith, and Holding is now in the process of counter-responding via a point-by-point YouTube playlist (Holding's channel is described below) on both his own arguments and Carrier's objections.
 * Trusting the New Testament

YouTube
In 2010 J. P. Holding created a YouTube account where he has made several videos based on his beliefs and education. He covers topics such as Hell not being a fiery place of torture, how we know who wrote the New Testament, and Elisha and the Two bears. He doesn't allow comments or videos containing swearing (except 'dumbass') or blasphemy.

His cartoons are much better than Chick Tracts (so are those of my 4-year old nephews), and actually managed to catch us doing something stupid at one point (the Stopped clock effect goes both ways, after all).

Interactions with other YouTubers
J. P. Holding is known for making replies to famous atheists, such as ProfMTH and NonStampCollector. He calls them "Fundy Atheists" because he thinks they argue like Christian fundamentalists (note that this is not a term of his making, however).

In his videos, ProfMTH, dubbed Mitch, is portrayed as a short bald man with heterochromatic eyes, one of which appears to be nonfunctional. He is shown to lack scholarship and is often thrown around and beat up. Holding has made a response to several of the "Bible Blunder" videos, as well as "Christians, Why do you Celebrate Easter".

NonStampCollector, nicknamed NoSCo, is often portrayed as a yellow stickman. NoSco is given a worse treatment than Mitch, and has been killed, decapitated, and seen making fart noises sometimes in videos not about him. Holding criticizes NonStampCollector for always portraying theists as uneducated in their religion, or completely irrational about it. Holding has made responses to "Context!!!" "Quiz Show! (Bible Contradictions)", and "Jesus and the Modern Day Intrepreter".

YouTube Atheist "SyeTen" made two video responses to him. TektonTV made a video response of his own.

YouTube Christian SymphControversy has also called Holding out in a couple videos. Holding, however, has made his own reactions to these videos.

Holding's video "NonStampCollector and ProfMTH feel the agape" is a response to their videos "God is Love?" and "1 Corinthians 13:8". They are seen as drinking buddies, and Mitch is a coward while NoSCo gives people raspberries. They are beaten up by a Bible Scholar and the personification of (presumably Christian) love.

Both NoSCo and Mitch are nasally voiced by Nick Peters, who actually just naturally sounds that way.

Critics of Holding often call his treatment of skeptics immature, but he responds saying that's how Looney Toons and political cartoons characterize authority figures.

He has even poked fun at the infamous DarkMatter2525, having made a "test" for him, which he never took.