Michael Spangler does not look like a white supremacist and antisemite.
He has no visible tattoos, no shaven head, no black overcoat or jackboots. No hood, no Confederate flag and no Nazi images appear in the background as he sits in front of a screen for a recent Zoom interview.
Instead, the soft-spoken Christian school teacher and pastor of Piedmont Presbyterian Church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, sporting a neatly trimmed beard, was dressed in a charcoal suit and sat in front of a fish tank that seemed straight off the set of Pixar’s “Finding Nemo.”
Then he began talking about Jews. And a broad smile broke across his face.
“You’re asking if I oppose the Jews who murdered Christ?” said Spangler as he paraphrased a verse from the Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, which he says labels Jews as “the enemies of God and all men.”
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“We need to consider them and treat them accordingly.”
A segregationist and “race realist” whose start-up church, which has a handful of families, bars Black people out of fear of “harmful race-mixing,” Spangler is one of a small but growing group of pastors and internet influencers who openly embrace racist and antisemitic views, casting them as true Christian ideas.
This group, many of whom fit the Reformed Christian theobro typology — known for their distinctive beards, suits and penchant for exegeting over whiskey — has wedded old-school segregationist theology from the Jim Crow-era South with the hypermasculinity of the manosphere and the savvy of the attention economy to preach white supremacy, antisemitism and patriarchy, mostly to disillusioned young men on the internet.
And along the way, they are turning outrage into cash.
Selling white supremacy
In May of 2025, Joel Webbon, a Texas pastor and self-described Christian nationalist with more than 100,000 followers on X, launched On the Nose Media LLC, a new for-profit media company.
The company, which does business as NXR Studios — short for “New Christian Right” — bought the YouTube channel formerly run by Right Response Ministries, a nonprofit founded by Webbon in 2019. The channel currently has 187,000 subscribers and more than 20 million views. Webbon told media, in an email after this article was originally published, that at the time of sale, the channel had 125,000 subscribers and “under 16 million views.” He said the channel had added more than 50,000 subscribers and “more than 8 million views this year.”
Webbon, who had declined an interview before publication, also told media that the channel does not promote white supremacy and never has. “Our content is explicitly Christian, grounded in the theological and political vision of the Scriptures and the historic Protestant tradition,” Webbon said in a post-publication email.
The new company, which lists Webbon among its principals in documents filed with the state of Texas, has turned the channel into a bullhorn for Christian nationalism, antisemitism and white supremacy. One of the first videos for the new NXR channel was an interview with Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist influencer whom Webbon called “the most significant man in America.” (Fuentes was paid for his appearance, the company’s CFO recently disclosed.)
Along with subscriptions, which range from $9.99 a month for premium content and $19.99 for VIP access, the company sells a “Christian Nationalist Starter Pack” of books for $99.99 with titles like “White Genocide” and T-shirts emblazoned with “It’s Ok to be White” and “I’ll Take the Christian, Hold the Judeo,” among other slogans. (The group also sells pro-nicotine T-shirts, part of their pro-smoking message.) Subscribers can listen to an audiobook version of Martin Luther’s “On the Jews and Their Lies” as well.
Webbon’s company also hosts conferences and sells ads, offering “millions of impressions each month across high-engagement content, connecting your brand with a loyal and values-driven audience.”
The mix of extreme views and commerce can be jarring.
During a recent episode, Webbon, whose church boasted of having about 200 members back in 2023, jumped from dissing Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks and extolling the virtues of the Patriot Front, a white nationalist group, to a pitch for affordable “grass-fed, pasture-raised beef” sold by Wild Pastures, a meat subscription service.
“Try it for yourself, get 20% off,” he said, then hopped back into praising the “physically fit, well-behaved, disciplined” members of the Patriot Front.
YouTube influencer Joshua Haymes is even more enthusiastic. Once a ponytailed hipster church planter with a soul-patch in the early days of COVID-19, Haymes has defended slavery using the Bible, and claims Hitler — who he calls “the mustache man” — was misunderstood.
“It is not inherently evil to own another human being,” he said about slavery in a late December episode on his Reformation Red Pill YouTube channel, adding that “it is very important that every Christian affirm what I just said.”
“Christians in America have been led astray on this issue,” he said, saying the Bible defends slavery. Then Haymes, who often sports a brown blazer, tie and pipe, launched into an energetic pitch for Beam Dream Sleep Powder.
“It’s literally like a hot chocolate before bed, and it tastes really good,” he said. “So guys, go get some Beam Dream Sleep Powder and use my code RRP for up to 35% off.”
Haymes is also a big fan, at least on his channel, of a Christian protein powder and teriyaki beef sticks from a sponsor.
Ramping up
Podcaster Will Spencer, who runs a podcast focused on Christianity and men’s issues, said pro-white supremacist pastors have mastered some of the lessons of other internet influencers. Spencer, who grew up in a Jewish family and later converted to Christianity after meeting a church group at the Burning Man festival, has warned of the dangers of neo-Nazi ideas invading churches by targeting young men.
Spencer, who faced backlash last year after disowning an interview he’d done with influencer Corey Mahler after finding out about Mahler’s neo-Nazi views, said extreme views can be a proven strategy for building an audience online. He said in general, women share and engage with social media content more than men do.
“But there is an exception to that. If you could tap into a segment of young, angry, disaffected men with disposable income — they are hyper-tribal, hyper-loyal, they share and engage consistently — you become their guy — you can circumvent the way social media usually works,” he said.
But that strategy requires a constant stream of outrage.
“The problem,” he said, is that “you have to keep shoveling them increasing red bits of meat — it is a one-way trip.”
For Dale Partridge, an Arizona pastor and another member of the New Christian Right channel, that one-way trip has included significant transformation.
A decade ago, Partridge was a lifestyle blogger and social justice evangelical entrepreneur who had been “saved from success.” In 2015, he gave a TEDx talk called “How to Value People over Profits” based on his book of the same title. His most controversial view was that yoga pants are sinful.
In recent years, Partridge, who has more than 300,000 social media followers and more than 40,000 on YouTube, has rebranded himself as a chain-smoking, hardcore Christian nationalist, claiming women should not be allowed to vote, Black Americans should not be citizens and Jews were ruining Germany before the Nazis took over.
“So this Nazi or National Socialist movement terrified the Jews because it represented a powerful form of Christian nationalism,” he said in a video clip posted on social media.
Partridge, who did not respond to a request for an interview, also runs “Manhood.org,” which offers a get-rich program based on his past business experience for $200 a month or $2,200 a year.
At his church, King’s Way Reformed Church, Partridge recently preached a series of sermons on the curse of Ham — a reference to an obscure Old Testament story historically used to justify slavery and segregation. He advocated for a return to “European Christian colonization of African nations.”
Elsewhere, Partridge has argued for America to become 90% white again, as it was in the 1960s, and called for the deportation of 100 million immigrants.
Partridge and King’s Way Reformed Church, which has about 100 members and is located in Prescott, Arizona, were featured this year in the New York Times for the congregations’ embrace of biblical patriarchy and household voting, the idea that every household gets one vote and the husband casts it.
Many of these pastors, including Partridge, Webbon and Spangler, have brick-and-mortar churches, but while their congregations are small, their online audiences run in the hundreds of thousands.
No longer taboo
Partridge and Webbon, along with Calvin Robinson, a British cleric who lost his ministerial credentials for making a Nazi-like salute at an event, recently took part in a long YouTube discussion on what to do about “the Black problem.”
Along with arguing for mass deportations, the panelists claimed the Civil Rights Act has held Black Americans back, that Black Americans are less intelligent than white Americans and that interracial marriage, while not banned by the Bible, is ill-advised, and minorities should know their place.
George Yancey, a professor of sociology at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, believes the rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA movement have created space for these kinds of racist ideas to thrive.
“When Trump was elected, and the way Trump talks about race, that created a permission structure for people to talk about race,” he said. “Some people had these racist ideas, but they were afraid to say it before Trump.”
Yancey also wonders if the George Floyd-era discussions about racism have played a role as well. In those discussions, the definition of racism was expanded beyond what he called “no-doubt about it” hateful forms of racism to include disagreements on how best to address racial disparities.
“I really want to reserve that term for people who engage in the sort of hateful racism that I grew up seeing,” Yancey said.
Webbon, who declined a request for an interview, recently sat down in a wood-paneled studio with Thomas Rousseau, founder of the Patriot Front, a white nationalist organization. After a promo for the NXR’s upcoming fall conference, “Christ is King: America After Trump,” which offered deep discounts for families, they discussed, among other things, whether Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who is Black, should be deported to Africa along with other Black Americans.
In an excerpt of the interview, posted online by Nashville investigative journalist Phil Williams, Rousseau said yes, in his version of America, Thomas could not be an American. Webbon said no, adding that Thomas is one of the few Black people who should be allowed to vote. Both said the United States should not be a multi-racial country.
Webbon, dressed in his uniform of a dark sport coat and khaki pants, assured Rousseau that he doesn’t find his claim that Black people cannot be Americans racist.
“I just want you to know, and I hope you know this. Like, I don’t hear that and say, ‘You dirty racist. Okay, that’s terrible, or I can’t believe that,’” Webbon said. “I perfectly understand the position.”
Webbon, a former aspiring musician and one-time Vineyard church planter, has not always held such extreme views on race. As recently as 2024, he posted a video saying if his daughter brought home a Black Christian man “who loved the Lord,” Webbon said, “I want to say, praise God, marry my daughter.”
Webbon’s change in views grieves Samuel Sey, a conservative Black Christian blogger who was once on friendly terms with the Texas pastor, even speaking on a panel together at a church conference in 2022.
He believes Webbon and pastors like him chose ambition and controversy over preaching Christianity. To quote the Bible, he said in a reference to a New Testament passage, they want to gain the world but are losing their souls.
Sey, who was born in Ghana and immigrated in childhood to Canada, worries that all the language of white supremacy will lead to violence.
“You can’t keep saying all these things, and therefore there not to be a violent consequence at some point,” he said.
Reconstructing racism
Spangler, who has been a pastor since 2018 and was expelled from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 2024 for his views, also went through an extreme transformation. He grew up attending services at Lloyd Presbyterian Church, a historic African American congregation in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) where his mother was pastor.
Things started to change when he was a student at Davidson College. At the time, Spangler, an aspiring minister, was engaged to another aspiring minister.
“My fiancée and I were going to be pastors together in the PCUSA,” he said in an interview.
Spangler said he had a conversion experience while reading a sermon on the New Testament book of Ephesians and came to believe women should obey men.
That did not go over with his wife-to-be. In Spangler’s retelling, she ended up dumping both him and Jesus, becoming a lesbian and Jewish. Spangler, who in the past has said America needs a Protestant Hitler, said his views on feminism later changed how he views matters of race.
“Just as God did not make the sexes equal, he did not make races equal,” Spangler told media.
Spangler and his friend, the Rev. Samuel Ketcham, who was defrocked by the Reformed Presbyterian Church for his racist views earlier this year, have started their own denomination, known as the Southern Presbytery.
That name is telling. Southern Presbyterians during the Civil War era were zealous proponents of the righteousness of slavery and racism, said R. Ward Holder, director for the Center for the Study of Religion and Public Life at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Holder said during the Civil War, Presbyterians, like the Baptists, split between the North and the South. Theologians like James Henley Thornwell and Robert Lewis Dabney, in what was known as the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America, believed the Bible supported slavery and their way of life.
Holder sees a parallel in pastors and influencers like Spangler, for whom the racism and sexism of America’s past are not sins to be overcome but an essential part of the Christian America they want to build.
They are features, not bugs, for pastors like Spangler.
“If you’re a true believer, that’s not going to bother you,” said Holder.
True believers?
Jemar Tisby, the New York Times bestselling author of “The Color of Compromise,” compared the return of racist ideas to the Redemption era, which followed Reconstruction. In that era, Southern Blacks lost much of the social standing and political influence they’d gained after the Civil War.
“Redemption is a Bible word that means restoring a people to right relationship with God,” he said. “But in the hands of white supremacists, redemption meant taking back the country for white people. That’s essentially what this resurgence of racism is about.”
Tisby said the ideas promoted by pastors like Spangler and Webbon are gaining attention but are unlikely to convince large numbers of people.
“There are some people who always believed it who are now being more vocal about it,” he said. “But I don’t know that they’re being effective evangelists of their ideology.”
Hunter Baker, senior fellow for civic renewal and religious liberty at the First Liberty Institute, said for pastors like Partridge or Webbon, creating outrage is “almost like a fun activity.”
Some of the nationalist influencers, Baker said, seem to have adopted a “pre-Christian identity” and have rejected teachings of Jesus, especially the Sermon on the Mount.
“Jesus is not front and center with these guys,” he said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story had an incorrect date for the founding of NXR Studios. The story also has been updated with additional audience data for NXR Studios and a statement from Joel Webbon.
Bob Smietana is a national reporter for Religion News Service.
52 Responses
I can only hope these ‘theobros’ will remain a small minority within American society even with their use of social media.
Whiskey and chain smoking may contribute to that end.
Ideas have consequences. Perhaps we should take up a collection and send each of these fellows a carton of Cowboy Killers and a case of Jim Beam?
In the meantime they will sell books, downloads and magic pills to help pay for possible future medical expenses.
Scripture often portrays oppressive systems as most desperate when their collapse is imminent. In Exodus 1–5, Pharaoh intensifies Israel’s burdens, demanding more bricks with less straw, as God’s deliverance draws near. This escalation is not mere stubbornness but a sign of divine judgment: the old order is condemned, and liberation is at hand. Pharaoh’s “hardening” (Exodus 7:3) reveals the futility of resisting God’s new covenant purposes.
Joel Webbon’s rhetoric on interracial marriage mirrors this pattern. As interracial unions rise, now about 19% of new U.S. marriages, according to Pew Research, racial hierarchies erode, prompting defensive cries from those invested in ethnic preservation.
“Scripture often portrays oppressive systems as most desperate when their collapse is imminent.”
This is called an “Extinction Burst”, where a system about to collapse rallies to appear all-strong, all-powerful, united, and winning BIGLY just before everything goes belly-up. Analogous to the “terminal rally” phenomenon in hospice, where someone seriously dying comes out of the terminal coma and appears to recover suddenly and completely back into good health for a couple hours before the final crash. (With death usually coming within 24 hours after the start of the terminal rally.)
“As interracial unions rise, … racial hierarchies erode, prompting defensive cries from those invested in ethnic preservation.”
Type example: Ku Kluxers’ obsession with “Protecting White Womanhood” (from ‘race-mongrelization’). Not out of any concern for women, but like purebred dog breeders protecting the pedigrees of their breeding stock. (Aside: a LOT of those purebred dog breeds develop serious birth defects over generations.)
Another type example: A couple months ago during the birthright citizenship brawl, some official or preacher was quoted as “American Citizenship will henceforth be determined by Ancestry and Faith”. Replacing Jus Soli (“Law of Soil/Birthplace”) with Jus Sanguinis (“Law of Blood/Ethnicity”) as the requirement and definition of citizenship.
According to AI, these are some of the differences between Biblical slavery and chattel slavery:
Not Race-Based:
Unlike modern slavery, biblical servitude was not based on skin color or racial prejudice.
Debt and Poverty Management:
Many Hebrew “servants” entered servitude voluntarily to work off debts or escape extreme poverty, functioning more like indentured labor.
Time Limits:
Under Mosaic law, Israelite debt slaves were required to be freed after six years of service, receiving generous provisions to start fresh during the seventh year.
Capital Punishment for Kidnapping:
Abducting a person to sell them into slavery was strictly outlawed and punishable by death.
Legal Protections and Rights:
Masters were legally required to treat servants humanely. If a master physically injured a servant (such as knocking out a tooth or blinding an eye), the servant was granted immediate freedom as compensation.
Refuge for Runaways:
Unlike later American fugitive slave laws, biblical law forbade returning an escaped slave who fled from a harsh master to their owner, allowing them to live safely wherever they chose.
Owning an individual is EVIL. People throughout history have always found ways to justify evil, but slavery as practiced in the USA was WRONG. Period. No Bible verse supports it.
These “theobros” deserve the contempt of every sane individual on the planet.
You seriously consulted ai about this?
Vivian Kern:
Yes, I seriously did. Are you concerned that I used AI?
Many AI responses include links to the sources of the information gleaned from the web.
Yes. But it’s important to be careful because most people don’t actually check the links and the links, themselves, can be part of the ai hallucination. The linked article may not, and often doesn’t, say what the ai says it says.
A lawyer a short time ago went to court with an entire case driven by ai only for it to be discovered that none of the case-law he cited in the case actually existed.
Ai wants to “please” you and so it will create things that LOOK more credible than they are.
“A lawyer a short time ago went to court with an entire case driven by ai only for it to be discovered that none of the case-law he cited in the case actually existed.”
Covered by every legal-analysis channel on YouTube.
With titles like “How to torpedo your legal career using ChatGPT”.
Good, accurate points❗
“The right is actually trying to move forward, away from liberal democratic political institutions, [and] processes.”
The religious right was made in the battle over access to abortion rights, but now experts believe there is a much broader war being waged and other personal freedoms, as well as American democracy, are all on the line.
excerpt from
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-16/why-america-is-so-divided-on-abortion-and-the-men-who-planned-it/101188994?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=cont ent_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
Absolutely disgusting. There is no Jesus in any of this.
No joy, either.
I don’t know about the others mentioned in the article but I have never EVER seen Joel Webbon or Calvin Robinson smile.
[I’m sure they would answer with something like: “well, we discuss serious issues!”
But joy is PART of the fruit of the Spirit. No joy means no Holy Spirit indwelling. Period.
And regenerate Christians (the only kind: John 1:12-13, Romans 8:9 etc) cannot contain their light and joy: it’s there for all to see]
I did some brief internet searches to make sure Spangler wasn’t in my denomination and saw a) he’s not in ANY denomination, b) his church is listed as having a session of two men, himself and an unnamed elder, c) there is no church address or pictures of church activities on his church website (how does one attend?) and d) the church Facebook page has zero activity for about a year, and never had much activity except posts by non-members speculating about the church. He doesn’t seem to be making much of an impact from the local church angle.
Sounds like Spangler’s well on his way to the Ultimate Theoretical End State of the One True Church of One.
He may not be “making much of an impact from the local church angle”, but any crazy can become a Mass Movement (if not a One True Way) with enough Internet Presence and Social Media Clout. (Imagine Adolf Hitler born a century later and becoming a Big Name Influencer in the Manosphere…)
“ And along the way, they are turning outrage into cash.”
And there it is, in its entirety. Turning inadequacy into fear, fear into grievance, grievance into outrage, outrage into cash, cash into power. Andrew Tate, Clavicular, Donald Trump—it’s all the same playbook.
Grifters gotta grift. It is what they do best.
100% As a rule, I think it’s probably a good idea not to give money to people who have more money than you
They’re also taking advantage of free speech and lack of regulation on social media so they can just spout lies about history and even if someone corrects them in the comments, not everyone reads the comments.
Minorities are always easy targets for bullies and they start with misrepresentation, assuming that most people won’t read facts or even try do any reseach.
As just one example, the Jewish population of Germany in 1930 was between 520 and 530,000 i.e about 0.8% of the population.
I see the same lies being spread about Muslims in the UK today with ignorant or purposely provocative Americans on YouTube and X talking about a “takeover”.
If you didn’t go to (parts of) London, Birmingham or the North West of England, you could spend years in the UK without even bumping into a Muslim. They make up 6% of the population (and, of course, some identify as “Muslim” although their family has been secular for generations).
Deception (and exaggeration is deception) is so dangerous. John 8:44.
“If you didn’t go to (parts of) London, Birmingham or the North West of England, you could spend years in the UK without even bumping into a Muslim. They make up 6% of the population”
The at least 1400 girls of Rotherham who were raped by your Pakistani Muslims are not reassured by your 6 percent figure.
Islam does not belong in Western Europe or North America. Or South America. Come to think of it, Islam doesn’t belong in the middle east either. What a cancer. And it is spread by Muslims.
I could make similar arguments about Christianity or any other religion. The end of the matter is quite simply Muslims are people created in the image and after the likeness of God. They therefore as individuals deserve the respect due the bearer of the image and likeness of God, and I as a Christian must show that respect. Perhaps when the church in the west actually starts behaving like The Bride of Christ and dealing with its own numerous problems, of abuse and rape, it can cast, but by that point we probably wouldn’t want to because we would recognize as one of the ones we are sent to minister to instead of judging in self righteous arrogance
You could make “well whuddabout them [Christians, Jains, Shintoists etc]” arguments that they’re the same as Islam, but you would be wrong. The church in the west IS dealing with its own problems of abuse and rape. The Roys report is part of that. In contrast, the appalling view of all of daar-al-harb as one big femme-fleshpot for the faithful, and then an afterlife with 72 virgins to use however you want, is a distinctly Islamic tenet. It is baked into their doctrinal cake, and has been remarked upon with completely appropriate disgust ever since the rulers of Byzantium. Furthermore, there is no effort at “reforming” Islam from within–if there were, we’d hear all about it on NPR with breathless jubilation that “they’re just like Episcopalians, with more interesting food! Allahu akhbar!”
Muslims are created in the image of God–on that we agree. They are worthy of the same respect and compassion we give everyone. Their beliefs, however, are not. YOU are not a member of a church or denomination where you and a number of your friends would conspire to communally violate girls, right? What equivalence, then, is there between you, who are appropriately appalled by sexual abuse, and the Muslims in the UK who groomed, raped, sodomized, molested, and abused their way through Rotherham? Or the Muslims who have turned Malmo into a no-go zone, and turn German outdoor markets into grope-fests? Or the Muslims burning down Paris (again) right now?
This is really not a “well, who am I to judge” issue.
I don’t recall saying who am I to judge. I will judge any group that condones or covers up the abuse or rape of anyone, whether that group be Muslim or claim the name of Christ. I am not arguing that there are not Muslims or Muslim groups who do great and horrific evil to women. What I am arguing that there are many Muslims that are also appalled by it. So while I disagree Muslim theology, I will not condemn. I have known of Muslims that behaved with greater righteous than men that have claimed the name of Christ
They look exactly the part actually if you grew up around these kinds of guys.
1. Trump did not open up the discussion at all. It was ALWAYS pushing forward.
2. The 3rd reich did not die, neither did Hitler. They just relocated to western hemisphere (declassified documents prove this) and morphed into the 4th reich worming their way into society once again, thus time more subtly.
If Christians educate themselves on the real world situation, how the deep state works as an overlay world wide (but especially in US and Israel) and learn to walk in the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they would have more than enough evidence to overwhelm this kind of psychological operation with truth well aimed to make the biggest impact.
Yes, declassified programs like Operation Paperclip show the extent at which under the table shenanigans hid the truth.
“ After the uncounted tens of thousands of the most useful knowledge candidates had been transferred to the US, there was still an enormous remainder being maintained in these concentration camps – widely known as “Eisenhower’s Death Camps” – individuals who had been debriefed and for whom the Americans had no further need. I believe it was Michaels who noted there was at one point a plan by American General R. L. Walsh, known as the German “Urwald-Programm” or jungle program, which was a massive plan to scatter and resettle these Germans in small numbers as widely as possible anywhere and everywhere in the Third World, as one way to prevent Germany from ever again forming a critical mass of industrial knowledge.[6] In the end, those ‘debriefed and not especially valuable’ millions were either executed outright or starved to death, totaling some 12 million Germans, a large part of the content of Bacque’s “Other Losses”.[7] It should be noted, as Bacque has done, that the death by starvation of the many millions of German civilians was a planned and deliberate process.[8][9]”
Citing Jemar Tisby to critique the (not Reformed) NXR guys is ironic. He is what they are on the other side of the spectrum: woke, pushing other races, and using the bible to promote traditionally non-Christian ideas.
“woke, pushing other races” – so, you’re a white supremicist just like the evil men described in this article.
I’m so old, I remember a guy who said something very clear, if controversial – and we’ve been trying to prove him wrong ever since: “you CANNOT serve God and money.”
Appalling and frightening. May believers carefully consider who they are listening to and learn what the Word teaches.
I have news for these guys…IT WAS ALL OUR SIN that put Jesus on the cross.
While I appreciate the comments disavowing these “theobros” and their rhetoric, I’m also going to say two things: 1. This has been among all of us for a while now, and 2. “I told you so.”
For #1: If you listen to the “theobros” rhetoric (and, if you can stomach it, an entire episode of one of their podcasts), you’ll see their stances are not far off of what’s become acceptable to say and believe in recent years, including in conservative evangelical circles. Like Satan did in the Garden of Eden, these “theobros” twist a few data points and take select passages of verses, writings and speeches to sound legit while actually pushing things more towards the extreme “little by little”. Example: I’ve heard “millions of immigrants should be deported” and “forcing races to mix will just cause resentment” (in response to diversity programs) from sources deemed “acceptable”, and was argued down when I raised a red flag about the direction it was heading.
For #2. Why the “I told you so”? Because many of us who warned that a lot of language and positional arguments out there were steps towards this extremism were told we were paranoid, or were sarcastically dismissed with “so everything is racist now? we’re tired of everything being called racist!” Are you listening now??
This is why scripture warns about there not being “even a hint” of immorality among us and how “just a little yeast” impacts the whole batch. These “theobros” are infecting the church – and are growing in popularity. What was once deemed unfathomable to be mainstream isn’t too far off now, is it?
The real question is: “now what do we do about it?”
“The real question is: “now what do we do about it?””
IMO the following steps might help.
1. Expose and refute the ideas of the ‘influencers’ (and others) mentioned in this article.
2. Admonish church members who are supporting and endorsing their views.
3. Replace bad ideas with good ones.
4. Pray
Not tremendously new here, IMO. When I started blogging in 2005, my blog attracted a few neo-segregationists, and it was interesting (though sad) to see how many of them would cross lines between ordinary paleo-conservative thought to an endorsement of segregation, or between commentary on the Sanhedrin’s guilt for the death of Christ to bigotry against Jews in general. I tried a few times to get through, but without success.
This is excellent analysis. In a certain sense the current GOP is the old Confederacy and its Copperhead allies resurrected. The South has been seething just below the surface for a century and a half and Trump lit the match.
Back around George Wallace’s third-party run for President in 1968 (where he carried most of the Former Confederate States), there was this slogan going around — “The South Will Rise Again!”
(I was in my early teens back then, but after that election I always referred to Wallace as “President of the Confederacy”.)
As a committed Christian and someone who worked in professional ministry for years, one thing I can say is that mental illness and Christianity are unsettlingly linked.
Its not that Christians are more likely to be mentally ill. The opposite is true. Christians and religious people are shown to have much higher mental health outcomes than non-religious people. But among people with mental illness, there is a higher degree of likelihood that they incorporate Christianity and other religious concepts into their mental illness.
One source I look at says 15% – 40% of instances of psychosis have a religious context.
People who have high degrees of paranoia, fear, anxiety, are prone to conspiracy thinking, rumination, narcissism, delusions of grandeur, etc. can be drawn to religious contexts. Especially when given a platform and stolen legitimacy as a “spiritual authority figure” to spread their message.
What used to be a delusional persons manifesto, which was scrawled in self-authored books,can now be a successful YouTube channel. Just as crazy, but with a much wider reach.
“The Altar of Pergamon,” a recent release by author and world evangelist Jonathan David Cahn, is a vital read for those in this generation who have forgotten the past world history and therefore are bound to repeat it. Copies are available wherever books are sold (Barnes & Noble still have a “3.00 off” round sticker placed on the cover of the book).
“Reformed Christian theobro typology — known for their distinctive beards, suits and penchant for exegeting over whiskey…”
You missed the Andrew Tate-sized cigars.
“(The group also sells pro-nicotine T-shirts, part of their pro-smoking message.) ”
Never mind…
I’ve been scrolling YouTube ever since the COVID lockdowns, and in the past year or two I’ve come across a LOT of YT comments filled with both Christianese and anti-Semitic dogwhistles, the latest algospeak code words for “das Juden” being “The Tiny Hats”. (And some of the accompanying thumbnails would do justice to Der Sturmer.)
Including (as someone autism-adjacent with friends actually on the spectrum) talk about putting autistics “in camps with the other defectives”; this is usually paired with anti-vaxx “The Jab Causes Autism” and its implication that your child being autistic is far worse than your child being dead. Last time I saw my doctor, I brought this up and he said directly “Eugenics is back”.
And I remember from studies in German history of some 90 years ago, that a part of the NDSAP’s base (before their 1933 coup-from-within when they still had to win elections) were German Christians, wanting a strong leader to win their Kulturkampf against HOMOSEXUAL decadence and the Global Radical Left and restore Traditional German (Christian) Family Values. The Nazis promised all this, and the Christians chorused “AMEN!”
“You’ll always have Nazis among you,
You’ll always have Nazis among you;
Next time they won’t come in brown shirts or boots,
They’ll come speaking softly in three-piece suits,
But you’ll always have Nazis among you…”
— Donna Barr, “Desert Peach, the Musical” (2014), closing aria
I’m glad you covered this. I am a dad with two kids in a large private Christian school in the DFW area. I was exposed to Joel Webbon from several very enthusiastic dads who are ready to bring “masculinity back to America.” But really they like to sit around and say racist things about African Americans and Jews.
There is nothing Christian about NXR or Webbon. It’s not even well hidden racism, it is completely overt. I was very disturbed by the content they create and when I pushed back hard it was because I was “too sensitive” to handle “real conversations” and “real Christianity.” What a time we live in.
But sadly there are many people in the church and at Christian schools who have no idea the first thing about Jesus.
Am noticing all these guys are some type of Reformed or Presbyterian adherent. They’re not Methodist nor Anglican nor Catholic nor Mennonite nor Adventist nor anything else. What is it about Reformed theology that births this type of stuff?
“The right is actually trying to move forward, away from liberal democratic political institutions, [and] processes.”
The religious right was made in the battle over access to abortion rights, but now experts believe there is a much broader war being waged and other personal freedoms, as well as American democracy, are all on the line.
excerpt from
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-16/why-america-is-so-divided-on-abortion-and-the-men-who-planned-it/101188994?utm_campaign=abc_news_web&utm_content=link&utm_medium=cont ent_shared&utm_source=abc_news_web
‘Partridge called for the deportation of 100 million immigrants’
Goodness, that’s some significant transport contract $$$ to be given to the enablers of the present administration. Please stop giving them ideas at cost to the taxpaye after all we spend enough on “defence” from different people, many of which that just wish to be left alone. Wondering also who these Partridge types & supporters will get to wipe their bums , shower and feed them, clean up for them, etc, when all the aged care & health & community staff are shown the door? 🤔
And wishing to push the issue further…he asked Jesus who is my neighbour.? And Jesus said..
I’m not arguing that many of these ideas are harmful and unbiblical. I don’t agree with these guys a lot of things, but I do think we should be careful to represent their arguments well.
I do want to clarify the slavery Joshua Haymes was talking about was not American slavery. I saw the video that was referenced, and he was specifically speaking about slavery in the Bible. He specifically stated that American slavery, slave-trading, beating, etc. does go against Scripture. I don’t know about the other guys, but he is not an antiSemite. He is a theonomist, which I do disagree with, but I don’t think it’s accurate to call him a white supremacist or anti-Semite. I’m not a huge fan of his or anything like that, but I did want to make sure things were put in the right context. I love debate and critiquing ideas, but we have to be careful to frame arguments in the right light and not take things out of context, lest we commit the strawman fallacy. ❤️
Chloe – I’m sure you mean well, but it is “technicalities” like the ones you’re trying to raise that allow for ideologies like those of the theobros to take root as valid. Joshua Haymes has gone beyond “theologically disagreeing with Judaism” (which is the technicality he hides under when confronted). Haymes has repeatedly blamed Jewish people for the decline of the US, promoted the Great Replacement theory (which is rooted in white supremacy), and promoted antisemitic influencers on his platforms (so he can say “I didn’t say it, THEY did!”).
Furthermore, Haymes is a Christian nationalist, which in and of itself is blasphemy. There should be no room for even a HINT of his “technicalities” to take root in the church, and he should be called out for it. No “but…” about it.
The great replacement is real.
I genuinely do appreciate your clarification. I haven’t followed him super closely as of late and definitely haven’t seen everything he’s put out, though I am familiar with him and and have watched a good bit of what he’s put out. I think we should definitely call him out for any and all unbiblical beliefs he holds, not the least being a theonomist. I do truly believe him to be a brother in Christ, though misguided on some issues. Again, I don’t want to downplay his errors.
AI definition of Christian Nationalism :
” Christian nationalism is an ideology that seeks to merge Christian identity with national identity, advocating for the government to promote or enforce Christian values within society. This movement often emphasizes the belief that a nation should be defined by its Christian heritage and aims to influence public policy accordingly. ”
Hello — I am quite sure God would be pleased with this .
I have a feeling heaven will also merge Christian identity with national identity and influence policy accordingly .Pretty sure America was so quickly and abundantly blessed because of it’s Christian heritage .
I’m truly astonished by some of the things I read on this forum .
What do you think the wide open borders thing and wanting to let illegal
aliens vote is all about if not the Great Replacement ?
What else could it possibly be ?
Trey –
Christian nationalism raises our national identity onto the same “level” as our identity in Christ; this is idolatrous. It combines our love of Christ with love of nation and equates specific political visions with God’s favor. Our God is not a Republican or Democrat; to reduce Him and His plan to that of a man-made political party of a man-made nation is blasphemous.
Our God and His Word were here before the US (and ANY nation) and will be here afterwards. We receive His favor via our faith in Christ not via belonging to or loving the US (or ANY nation). We are blessed via allegiance to Him not because we are “patriotic” nor because we are Americans.
The Bible also speaks clearly on how we are to come to Christ of our own volition; it calls us to make new disciples via preaching the gospel and baptizing. Christian nationalism is about seeking political power, favoritism for Christians, and forcing Christianity through government mandates; it marginalizes non-Christians. We see examples of this conflict between the Pharisees, who were mandating and marginalizing, and Jesus, who was calling people until Him of their free will and loving and advocating for the marginalized.
The Great Replacement has not only been disproven, but it is racist. It should have no place being spoken of, promoted, or even considered among the body of Christ. Christ died for ALL of us, as we were all created by God and loved equally in His sight.
God bless you.