If the Antioch Declaration were a conference, it would be ReformCon 25. The list of speakers includes Jeff Durbin, Joe Boot, Doug Wilson, and James White as headliners, all signatories of the Antioch Declaration. After a No Quarter November of burning bridges, the theme for ReformCon is “Out of the ashes.” This conference stands in stark opposition to Right Response Conference with the theme of defeating Trashworld. And with the backdrop of Woke Wars II, these two April conferences compete for the future of Reformed Evangelicalism.
ReformCon 25
In addition to the aforementioned names, the additional speakers at ReformedCon are Andrew Sandlin, Toby Sumpter, David L Bahnsen, Virgil Walker, and one other to be announced.
This conference represents the audiences of Apologia, Moscow, and the Ezra Institute with a little bit of G3 Ministries thrown in. Otherwise, this conference has a narrow audience it is trying to reach with a general message:
We live in a cultural crisis: Institutions, government, churches, and families are experiencing great compromise and corruption.
This conference offers a road map on how we can strengthen ourselves, our families, our churches, and our communities and rebuild more hopeful than ever.
We aim to equip and inspire Christians who have felt helpless and confused as they witnessed the systematic dismantling of our society. This is a conference of hope.
A Sharp Contrast
Enter the Right Response Conference with a host of speakers from differing camps serving a vast range of audiences. The most far-reaching is the controversial Calvin Robinson and the most normie reaching is Steve Deace. The conference is not marketed towards a niche sliver of Evangelicalism.
Which Way Reformed Man?
It’s not a coincidence that the marketing of the conferences greatly contrasts. In Defeating Trashworld, there are bold colors and the ReformedCon features muted colors and black-and-white images. An example of dystopianism not talked about enough is the disappearance of color. But the directions are opposed also. Will Reformed Evangelicalism shake off the vestiges of wokeness or will it lecture on the necessity of the Antioch Declaration so that Pete Hegseth can be confirmed to Trump’s cabinet? Will Reformed Evangelicals choose Christian Nationalism or Postmillennial Theonomic Libertarianism? Will we choose tactics that give us a broader coalition in the culture or weaponize the woke mob against those to our right?
Reformed Evangelicalism is at a crossroads, and these two conferences will play a role in shaping the future direction. As far as predictions go, Defeating Trashworld is the frontrunner in this battle in Woke Wars II.
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16 Responses
Calvin Robinson has been disinvited from the Christ is King conference: https://protestia.com/2025/01/08/calvin-robinsons-invitation-to-speak-at-christian-conference-rescinded/
@Morrow. The link you offer says the Robinson was disinvited to speak at the Clear Truth Media conference, which was long known. It does NOT say that he was disinvited from the Christ is King conference.
“This conference offers a road map on how we can strengthen ourselves, our families, our churches, and our communities and rebuild more hopeful than ever. We aim to equip and inspire Christians who have felt helpless and confused as they witnessed the systematic dismantling of our society.”
TRANSLATION: the conference speakers know that many White Christians are starting to wake up, have White racial loyalty, fight against the genocide of the White race, and realize (((who))) is perpetrating that genocide. Thus, the conference speakers are creating a fake, controlled-opposition, weak, tame version of nationalism as a safety valve, to divert White Christians from embracing White racial unity.
Doug Wilson, Joseph Boot, James White etc are all traitors, liars, and false teachers who are leading the flock to the slaughter.
These false teachers are shills for the (((evil enemies))) of the Christian flock.
And Doug and James are extremely creepy and exude evil. Even their photos are repulsive and disturbing to look at. Doug and James seem like the sort of people who shouldn’t be trusted around children.
The traitor-pastors and traitor-theologians can easily be exposed by asking them the following questions:
1) Do you believe that the jews are the “chosen people”?
2) Do you support the jews and (((their))) earthly imposter “israel”?
3) Do you believe that “racism” and “anti-semitism” are sins?
4) Do you support race-mixing and the blending of the races?
5) Do you think it’s fine for White women to marry black/brown men and submit to black/brown husbands?
The correct traditional Christian answer to all of the above questions is NO.
Any pastor or theologian who answers with any other response is a lying false teacher.
It is interesting that David L Bahnsen still appears on these shows. He owns his public standing to campaigning for the Federal Vision decades ago, claiming that his father would have supported the Federal Vision (even though Bahnsen Sr. was on record against James Jordan’s theology). This shows how one of the foundations of the Wilson crowd’s position is rejection of the Reformed doctrine of justification. Thus, for people like James White, it turns out that the rejection of Christian Nationalism trumps Reformation theology.
Bahnsen Sr might have lined up behind Norman Shepherd, but even Shepherd did not accept big parts of the Federal Vision, such as its adoption of the New Perspectives on Paul. Perhaps, though, what is now central to these people is loyalty to the movement and its leaders, not so much the theology.
Tim, what was the Federal Vision and what’s wront with it? I paid a little attention back then to the controversy with the blog Green Baggins going hard against Doug Wilson for it. But all I could understand of it was Doug was saying it was OK to say baptism is for the remission of sins since its scriptural language and the anti-FV side was saying you can’t say that because you don’t know if the baptizee is elect or not. Or something like that.
It doesn’t look like ReformCon has a lot of sponsors. Their website even has a typo and looks like it was just rushed together. Sad.
I stand corrected.
The Federal Vision was a theology concocted in the 1990s by persons mostly coming out of Tyler Reconstruction, but joined by others such as the Lutheran-trained Jeff Meyers. Originally it depended heavily on Jordon’s form of maximalist Biblical interpretation, based on Meredith Kline’s symbology, Van Til’s rejection of systematic theology built on deduction from Scripture, Norman Shepherd’s justification based on faithfulness (mixed faith and works), and monocovenantalism (no distinction of covenant of works and covenant of grace) with the concomitant of a certain amount of leveling between Old and New Testaments. Also coming in was the adoption of N.T. Wright’s New Perspectives on Paul, postmodernism (pushed by Peter Leithart), clericalism, institutionalism, sacramental grace, etc. The theology is widely held in Wilson’s CREC denomination.
It is also my contention that theologies such as the Federal Vision cannot be understood without placing them in the context of the long-term effects of two big mistakes made by Abraham Kuyper. 1) destabilizing Reformed theology by replacing the two-covenant system with a three-covenant system in which the social order is made independent of God redemption program by placing it with its own, common, covenant, and 2) replacing the philosophical basis for Reformed thought of Scholastic theology (where he was right) with a neo-Calvinism that rapidly led to the kook Reformational theology of Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven. I outline some of this in Theosophy, Van Til, and Bahnsen, and then I discuss this tradition vis-a-vis its Thomist critics in Divided Knowledge.
The answer to my question on Federal Vision shows a way in which Calvinism is so very much an abomination like Roman Catholicism, in that it can’t possibly be explained to an outsider because its a convoluted mess, like what theology would look like if produced by hoarders.
dave s: You have it backwards. These people are not Reformed. All that complication and confusion is because these people made up their own theology taking bits of Reformed theology, bits of other things, and inventing more. Perhaps there are no longer Reformed people in the world, or very few. The Reformed early on discovered that they could not remain committed to a theology that united their redemptive vision with their social vision. See “A Comparison of Baptist and Reformed Views of the Covenants” http://www.via-moderna.com/index_htm_files/BaptistCovTheo.pdf for the argument.
The covenant tof works vs covenant of grace nonsense is already a mistake. Biblically you have Old Covenant and New Covenant. Taking a covenant of works as Adam in the garden and then covenant of grace as monocovenant beginning with abraham that spans the old and new is dumb and messes up all theology. The root of it is already judaizing and a denial of the uniqueness of the New Covenent and therefore a rejection of the importance of Christ’s cross. Individual predesti ation takes the place of the cross; the cross becomes just a meanjngless thing thag happened in the middle of the monocovenent of grace. It also denies what John says in John1 “the law came by Moses but GRACE and truth by Jesus Christ.” The desire to retroject grace into the law and Abraham is wrong. The proper understanding of election is the Jews were elect in the OT and Gentiles are elect in the NT with a remnant of 1st century Jews joining (only 1st century, no remnant can exist beyond 70 AD because a remnant can only be a remnant of a true religion not a false one).
Actually, John 1 say the law came (edotha) by Moses but grace and truth became (egeneto) by Jesus Christ. The contrast is between foreshadowing and achievement.
Actually “For the law was given by Moses but grace and truth were born by Jesus Christ” which shows all the more that John was saying there wasn’t grace in the law. No man had seen God, and all who came before Jesus were thieves and robbers. Trying to retroject Christianity back into the law by a fake “Covenant of Grace” that goes back to Abraham is a Judaizing mistake.
It’s only a competition because you are making it one. But I get it. You need the traffic.