[3] One of Bales' opponents, Don Haymes, concisely summarized a widespread view of Bales in a 1977 essay (which represented the views of a faction within the Churches of Christ opposed to the strong political and theological conservatism represented by Bales, Benson, and the School of American Studies): In the beginning, 30 or more years ago, he was Young Lochinvar riding out of the West, a newly minted Doctor of Philosophy from Berkeley, boldly slaying the dragons of Error and rescuing the distressed damsels of Truth.
If today he seems more like Don Quixote, loping along on a flea-bitten nag, helmet slightly askew, armed with a pen rather than a lance, befuddled by the alchemy of the printed word—it is perhaps only our perceptions which changed; where once we saw dragons and giants, the cold light of time reveals only windmills, and the fair damsels are seen to be homely harridans hawking their ware.
The Harding Graduate School Library lists 64 separate titles from The Christian Conscientious Objector (1944) to Psalm for Frightened and Frustrated Sheep (1976).
He has published most of this remarkable output himself, or with the imprint of obscure purveyors of tracts and Bible school literature; but Baker Book House has issued three volumes and Christian Standard has published another; several, including his most notorious work, The Martin Luther King Story, were put out by Billy James Hargis' Christian Crusade.
Through several serious illnesses and the siring of a trainload of talented and attractive progeny, James Bales has managed to propel himself into the eye of almost every storm confronting the Church of Christ for more than three decades.
[citation needed] Ostensibly a dispute over the theological soundness of a private paper delivered by Atteberry at a Harding faculty meeting, the dispute seemed to involve dissenting faculty and student opinions regarding the overall zeitgeist of the NEP and political, cultural, and religious conservatism at Harding in general.