James White recently preached a sermon this Sunday on Roman Catholic Marian dogma. However, this sermon went viral for the wrong reasons and was more counterproductive to a polemic against the Roman Catholic Church because James White fell for rage bait on social media.
Enter Anthony from Avoiding Babylon, a YouTube channel with 15.5K subs who decided one day to tweet out the statement: “The thief on the Cross was saved because Mary prayed for him at the foot of his cross” on December 19 and also back in August 2024. It appears as though this troll has been reused before. Calvin Robinson trolled Protestants by calling the sentiment “based” and “Mary-Pilled.”
Anthony’s ragebait caught the attention of James White who then thought it wise to use it in a cantankerous sermon illustration. James White names “Anthony” but does not elaborate on his YouTube presence, which is worse because White offers no sense of credibility for the ragebait other than Calvin Robinson who also wants to incite Protestants anyway.
Nevertheless, White proceeds to act indignant about how this view is not broadly held in Papist circles. He then chides Calvin Robinson for not speaking English because he used slang that James White does not or pretends not to understand.
Inundating the congregation with social media beef during a sermon is cringeworthy regardless of context. In this case, James White took the bait of an obvious troll job and made himself a fool for using it in a crotchety sermon illustration.
This is reminiscent of Beth Moore who regaled readers with her social media beef in her memoir. This was after she did the same while preaching in a since-removed sermon. Despite wanting to remind everyone how old he is, James White acts like a middle schooler who just discovered social media and has not yet learned that no one cares about your online arguments.
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Robinson got to where he is today by trolling the Anglican Church and trolling the British establishment. He rose to fame on their reaction, which gave him publicity and caused him to be overrated intellectually. Since this was such a winning formula, why should he stop now?
As for White, he is really attacking Webbon though Robinson and he wants to get the enemies list clear in the mind of the Baptist congregants. In fact, what makes the Mary thing such an effective troll also makes it effective for White’s campaign against his rivals in the Baptist world.
To me, the revealing thing is that White is concerned by the influence of these (Webbon, et al.) individuals, but not really their theology. If he were really concerned about danger to Reformed theology he would point to other things. For example, Webbon says he uses covenant renewal liturgy in his church. James Jordan invented covenant renewal liturgy to go with his Federal Vision theology. Why does not White draw the line between himself and Federal Vision and its final justification by works? He attacks the doctrine when Romanists express it.
If you understand White as redirecting an arrow fired against him toward his rivals, what his is doing makes more sense.
James White’s sermons are always social media beefs though. Same as his 20 hour long podcasts.
Tim, your comments about the problems with “covenant renewal liturgy”, can you elaborate? Because based on wikipedia’s article it just sounds like an Anglican service:
“1. Call to Worship
2. Confession of sin
3. Consecration, which includes Bible readings and the sermon
4. Communion, or Lord’s Supper
5. Commissioning, or Benediction”
What’s the problem exactly? How would James White’s church’s liturgy differ from that?
Covenant renewal is analogous to the Roman mass, in which Christ’s sacrifice is renewed. See, for example, Jeffrey J. Meyer’s book on the Lord’s Service, where he says it is modeled on Old Testament sacrificial liturgy, as well as biblical typology and “covenant theology” (bearing in mind that the Federal Vision denies the distinction between the covenants of works and grace).
Covenant renewal is based on the clergy (the modern priesthood) trying to do what only Christ can do, i.e. make a new covenant that makes us right with God. Also I am sympathetic to what Tom Wadsworth says (in various talks available on Youtube) that God never tells us to any such thing as this. The attraction of views like Jordan’s is that, as God never told us to do this sort of “worship” and thus left no instruction, people turn to any sort of construction that claims to get from the Bible an account of the right way to go about it. When this turn to Old Testament liturgics arose in Tyler, there was an immediate split between Ray Sutton, who turned to high church traditions, and Jordan who chose to build his own based largely on Meredith Kline’s symbology.
James White and his GBT Seminary (more like LGBTQ Seminary) are traitorous lying false teachers who constantly pervert and twist “Christianity” to serve anti-White objectives.
After the America First movement wins power, James White, creepy Doug Wilson (who looks like a pedophile), Angel Studios, Protestia, Owen Strachan, Russell Moore, the depraved monster Joel Berry, etc etc etc etc will all be arrested and charged with treason and incitement of genocide.
Under an America First government, it will no longer be tolerated for manipulative traitors to use religion for anti-White purposes and gaslight White people into embracing racial suicide.
Any religious figure spewing anti-White theology will be arrested on charges of treason and genocide.
I’ve skimmed the book now. Its basically just a really bad argument for convincing Reformed to adopt the Anglican liturgy from the BCP. Lol. Like saying in worship we are figuratively cut up like animals in the Old Testament and sacrificed to God and eaten by God. Ridiculous. They could just be honest and say “Hey, we think the Anglican liturgy is cool and you should adopt it.” But no, they have to make a dumb argument that unless you use it you are a Marcionite, Pelagians, and Unitarian. LOL!
Anthony and Robinson respond. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nchYGCMleCs