The debate between James White and Corey Mahler occurred last night, and the Evangelical Dark Web prediction largely came to fruition. The debate was over the esoteric topic of Black santification, which was a sequel to the debate Corey Mahler had with Samuel Sey, which ended in disaster for the latter. With Corey Mahler playing king of the hill, it was time for James White to step up to the mound. To the credit of James White, he did not embarrass himself like Sey did, but neither White nor Mahler performed all that well.
James White pointed out that Corey Mahler’s argument is too subject to the time period, citing Scotland as an example of going from barbaric to a beacon of the gospel, to a degenerate state today. James White’s argument seemed to oppose natural hierarchy.
Corey Mahler rebutted by pointing out that James White is conflating sanctification with justification. Mahler argued that a large percentage of Blacks are definitionally retarded (via IQ) making spreading the gospel to themmore difficult because of the inability to understand hypotheticals.
In the second rebuttal, James White’s ego showcased itself, and where he was initially restrained and composed, he became quite casual, dismissive, and unciviled. He challenged Mahler to use a Scriptural example of race being an impediment to sanctification, to which Mahler responded, citing the Old Testament’s usage of “stiff-necked people” and the New Testament’s comments about Cretens. Corey Mahler claimed that Africans could never produce someone of the genius of Augustine, citing how many standard deviations above the IQ Augustine was, making it statistically impossible.
During cross-examination, Mahler asked about the faith of infants, buinging an argument that the intelligence and understanding of infants has no bearing on their regeneration. As Mahler is Lutheran and James White is Baptist, this was where the debate got heated. Mahler then questions James White, “When a man converts to Christianity, does he typically gain the ability to fly?” which causes James White to lose composure. The moderators intervene when Mahler asks White “Can God make a man get pregnant?”
This debate presupposed a sense of formality that the Samuel Sey debate did not, but moderation did not live up to their pretentious formatting.
James White uses his next cross-examination to argue that homosexuality has a genetic predisposition, to which Mahler disagrees, citing a lack of evidence. He’s right, and why James White wants to argue the liberal “born that way” myth is mindboggling.
Corey Mahler’s view seems to be that intelligence is fundamental to sanctification, but this was never fully developed.
James White used his closing attack Mahler personally and claimed that he never established a case. To a degree, White is right about this. In closing arguments, Mahler would mount an affirmative case for his position, tying self-professed faith with crime statistics, contrasting this with the fruit of the Spirit.
The debate did not have a clear winner. James White was arguing a different point than the resolution on Black sanctification, and Corey Mahler never fully developed his argument at the time. In a most interesting argument, Mahler argues that the Israelites uniquely were stiff-necked, arguing that neither Germanic tribes nor Africans would have built a golden calf while Moses was on the mountain. He followed this idea up, in closing, arguing that Christ’s judgment on Israel that Tyre and Sidon would have repented testifies to the racial predisposition that inhibited sanctification. This was his strongest point.
The Bible Dingers channel gained a lot of publicity and a nice haul of cash from hosting the debate. Thus, small YouTuber capitalism was the real winner.
Powered by RedCircle
7 Responses
My take is that Corey really didn’t bring his A game to this debate. His cross-exam was tedious, even for those who understand the point he was making about Sanctification not changing nature. The IQ thing is a important because it helps categorize why a post-Justification African might struggle significantly more with what others might consider easy sins to repent of (murder, theft, other violent sins). The same way a repentant alcoholic is naturally going to struggle more than a child who is saved young and never falls into serious lifestyle sins. Sanctification is a process that takes place over time and everyone starts somewhere different. It is a fact that the average African starts in a much worse position than the average European today. Just as it was a fact that the average Scot started much worse than the average Greek. The disagreement I generally have with Corey is whether Africa has a whole can become Christianized like the west was. I think it can, but it’s going to take much much longer, and we need to seriously rethink how we do missionary work in Africa.
Sadly, Jame White did bring his A game, and it was depressing to watch.
It seems to me that the big question is, Why would White only debate Mahler if he could do it on this absurd topic? And why, similarly, White only wants to debate Wolfe if he can make the topic a similarly far-out topic? Why does White not want to face their more central ideas? When he debates the papists, etc. he does not insist on only far out topics.
I don’t think either one “won” per se. Mahler won in that he used the debate as nothing but a ruse to get to read the FBI crime statistics. If that’s a win. But nobody actually won the debate proper.
Nobody won because the resolution was the wrong resolution. The resolution should have been “Blacks pastors are incapable of not being heretics” and Corey should have gone through all the black heretics highlighted recently on Protestia to prove it. And then when James White would bring forth Voddie as proof this is false, Corey could have just proved Voddie to be a heretic for not being Lutheran.
I appreciate the actual thought behind your summary, which I believe is pretty accurate. Most ‘debates’ I’ve seen with Mahler is that the opponents never argue against the actual point but what they think Mahler’s end goal is and that he’s some outright racist. The debates don’t even actually touch on the actual point, which is very frustrating. While I’m not in full agreement with him, Mahler has some thought behind his positions. Almost everyone that’s against Mahler doesn’t every try to understand his position, but just want to beat him down for what they think he ‘actually’ means or what they think his ‘actual’ goal is. I think most everyone against Mahler just simply doesn’t want to appear like they would agree with him at all and look good in the public eye.
Thoughtful summary of the debate which largely matches what I observed. Anyone declaring complete and total victory for one side should be heavily discounted.
I think CM would have benefitted from tightening up his opening, being a bit more selective with the cross-examine, and perhaps drawing some more parallels. White came very near to having a strong counter-argument which is that Mahler assumes intelligence and criminality to be a static state condition which is unchanging.
It was a debate where the opposing sides seemed to be debating different resolutions, engaging in different types of debates, and operating on different planes.
If you track the arguments in the traditional sense of organized theoretical debate, Mahler wins. If you think of it as a modern talking-point and sentiment based debate, White probably wins by the default of having the more comforting position.
Both lost in the sense that they didn’t get the clear K.O. win that would expand their audience or conclusively discredit their opponent beyond refute.
Throughout the debate there were several topics that came up that would have been more interesting debates.
“Corey Mahler claimed that Africans could never produce someone of the genius of Augustine.” Remind me of where Augustine was born?
Doug Wilson was exactly right in his debrief of this debate – those with stake on either side came out of this debate thinking their guy performed well… I’d add that those with stake on neither side would see that White carried the day.
Augustine was at least half Italian, his mother may have been either Italian or Berber, and Berbers resemble Arabs and Southern Italians rather than black Africans. Mr. Mahler probably meant black Africans, which would exclude Berbers and Egyptians, just as it would exclude Afrikaners and German Namibians and British South Africans and Rhodesians. All people born in Africa are not (black) Africans, just as most people born in the USA are not American Indians, and not all people born in Mexico are Mexica (Aztecs).