Earlier this year, I juxtaposed the Right Response Conference (Christ Is King: How To Defeat Trashworld) with Apologia’s ReformCon 25. The conference presentation, one with bright colors and one with black-and-white marketing, did much to convey the tone of the event. Having attended the Right Response Conference, Doug Wilson, James White, and Jeff Durbin were unmentioned on stage. In contrast, Apologia’s ReformCon can’t help but take jabs at ministry rivals.
The first viral moment from ReformCon was exposed by Evangelical Dark Web writer, Defiant Baptist, who pointed out a joke that Jeff Durbin told about the Trashworld conference being racist.
Dave Shannon, AKA Chocolate Knox, makes a joke about Virgil Walker being excused from the panel. In a Michael Scott delivery, Jeff Durbin quips about Chocolate Knox wanting another Black man on the panel. Escalating from there, with an interlude of reaction, Jeff Durbin jokes, “We’re fine with that here. This is not Trashworld conference.”
The crowd quickly quiets. There wasn’t a roar of laughter or clapter. Instead, crickets, as Jeff Durbin and his panelist play it off as a spicy comment.
The irony here is twofold. For starters, Jeff Durbin was an original speaker that Joel Webbon had lined up. Refusing to share a space with Stephen Wolfe, he was replaced by Calvin Robinson, a Black man.
Secondly, Dave Shannon was at the Right Response Conference. So Durbin is making a joke about the Right Response Conference being Whites only to Chocolate Knox, who was there.
JD Hall had an excellent take on this:
1. This was the most cringe clip that ever cringed.
2. The crowd didn’t just *not laugh* but it *got silent* and obviously did not like it. There wasn’t even an after-laugh that awkward moments usually get.
3. These are the “mature” and “serious” brethren who feel themselves in the position to chasten and condescend the “juvenile” XNats. And yet, they appear on stage as though irreverent youth pastors about to have a slime challenge. The one who looks like his face fell into a tackle box couldn’t even put on pants.
One side acts like this, and freaks out at funny memes, while cracking irreverent, slanderous (and unfunny) jokes on stage. The other side has a penchant for legit-funny memes, but when gathered for a conference actually turn out to be mature adults with ties and wear actual britches. Their condescension would be less cringe if they were worthy of it.
The rest of the panel was dominated by Jeff Durbin, who consumed a disproportionate amount of speaking time, of the six people, taking pot shots at Stephen Wolfe, though not by name.
Jeff Durbin and comedy have a strained history, however, as evident by the crowd, the turf wars between Apologia and their ministry rivals is not something that their own audience even wants to hear about.
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Now that James White is debating Corey Mahler, maybe his sidekick Dick Durbin (oh, excuse me, Jeff Durbin, but I wonder if there is a relation) can debate Treble Woe.