This post was written by Heath Robinson, the Project Archivist for the James D. Bales Papers project at the University of Arkansas Libraries Special Collections.
James D. Bales (1915-1995), was an author and professor of Bible and Theology at Harding University for about 40 years. Bales was also part of the National Education Program, an anti-communist group based in Searcy, Ark., and produced much of the organization’s written materials. The James D. Bales Papers will be opened for research in September 2017. Processed with the aid of a grant by the National Historic Publications & Records Commission (NHPRC), the collection will be of particular use to historians, political scientists, and religious scholars.
Dr. James D. Bales was a prolific writer who produced articles, pamphlets, and books from the mid-1940s to 1990. His writings covered two broad topics: Communism and Christianity. Bales approached the subject of Communism from an anti-communist point of view. He produced introductory works such as A Dictionary of Communist English, and more advanced works like Communism, Its Faith and Fallacies. Several of his works covered the relationship between communism and public figures such as J. Edgar Hoover, Martin Luther King, Jr., and John F. Kennedy.
Bales’ most widely covered topic was Christianity. He was a member of the Churches of Christ and a religious conservative who covered topics from that perspective. Several religious denominations were covered by Bales: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Seventh-Day Adventists, and Pentecostals.
Evolution was a topic about which Bales felt very strongly. He produced two books about the subject in addition to founding the “Evolution Unscientific Movement” anti-evolution group and taking part in several debates on the subject. With the book Two Worlds: Christianity and Communism, Bales combined the two topics to compare and contrast the Christian and communist worldviews and argued for the supremacy of the Christian approach.
These titles are a small portion of the James D. Bales Collection. This collection is held in the University Libraries’ Special Collections department and consists of nearly 90 volumes that Bales wrote himself or contributed to. In addition to these volumes, there is the James D. Bales Library, which contains roughly 2000 volumes that Dr. Bales collected over his lifetime. These volumes cover topics such as religion, history, politics, communism, geography, philosophy, economics, and race. Complementing these books and other print media are the James D. Bales Papers (MC 1256), a manuscript collection containing materials about and collected by Dr. Bales over his long career.
Perform a Library Catalog search for the James D. Bales Collection here. The James D. Bales Library can be found here.