The Double Standards of James White
James White wants you to know that there is a growing epidemic of neo-Nazi thought within Presbyterian and Reformed Baptist churches. In this, he is correct.
Yet, on the same day he wrote the above, he promoted his upcoming appearance with Doug Wilson at the annual ReformCon conference, put on by the media outlet of his Apologia Church. Last year he also appeared at the annual Fight Laugh Feast conference, the event for all things Wilson and friends.
What makes this significant is that, in a recent post, White demanded that his former friends and allies (who were, until recently, also friends and allies of most of the men above), Joel Webbon, Eric Conn and Brian Sauvé, publicly repudiate the white-nationalism of certain men who claim to be Christian: Corey Mahler, Ryan Dumperth, Ethan and Samuel Holden, and Michael Spangler. When these men refused, he didn’t let up. The only problem is, White doesn’t hold himself to the same standard with Wilson.
Though there are years of evidence that Doug Wilson holds views reprehensible enough to warrant the same response White demands of others, all I need to make my case are two things he recently said. First, Wilson thinks that, should the world’s ethnic groups intermarry enough, humanity will turn into “a light brown homogeneous goo scramble.” I challenge White to explain how this statement is any less reprehensible than the post he cited from the former Reformed Theological Seminary student above.
Secondly, in the video below, Doug Wilson said, “Our posturing at Nuremberg looks exactly like posturing now, and we can see that the moral reasoning there, was the work of Nuremberg cringe-lords.” He then went on to claim that the Allies prosecuting the Nazis at Nuremberg for “crimes against humanity” was based on the same godless “malleable” law the Nazis would have used against us, should they have won. To understand not only how factually incorrect this statement is, but how truly sick it is to suggest it, I recommend two books that detail exactly the level of inhumanity the men tried at Nuremberg ordered and/or participated in, Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men, and Gitta Sereny’s Into That Darkness. I again challenge White to explain how downplaying and equivocating the moral standard used to put men on trial for giving the order to, among other atrocities, have mothers hold their infants to their chests, so both could be shot with one bullet before being dumped into a mass grave, saving ammo, doesn’t deserve the same public rebuke and disassociation he demands of Webbon, Conn and Sauvé. I’m sure that others can give him dozens of other examples of Wilson’s morally reprehensible statements, over the years, if he finds my two insufficient.
Even should White dedicate an episode of the Dividing Line to trying to find loopholes with the above statements, there is still no room to deny that he is more than happy to continue to take the stage with a man who is still defending and profiting from Stephen Wolfe’s book, which did more to normalize key parts of Mahler, Dumperth, Spangler and the Holdens’ philosophy to young men in Reformed churches than anything in recent memory, and whose Canon Press is still planning on releasing an abridged version—even after he admitted that it promotes “blood and soil.” As White told Webbon, no one put a gun to his head. He is choosing to still be publicly associated with these ideas, and he’s holding other men to a double standard.
Full disclosure: Last year, David Bahnsen, who is also speaking with Wilson at ReformCon, pledged $80 to this Substack, after my series detailing how Wolfe’s speech at Conn and Sauvé’s New Christendom conference was laundering turn-of-the-century eugenic philosophy. This publication is free, and I have not accepted the pledge. I equally challenge Bahnsen to publicly rebuke Wilson.