Devilish Triangulation, Cancel Culture, and Evangelical Mean Girls
It may surprise you, but those of us who have lived through Cancel Culture are hesitant to take part in it.
Corey Stinking Mahler. I knew it was going to come to this. The shouts from the ether ring loudly for everyone on the Christian Nationalist side of the aisle. And for some reason, I’m asked a question several times a day despite the fact I’m not a Christian Nationalist. The question goes like this:
Where do you stand on Corey Mahler? I demand of thee, to pick a team. Thou shalt renounce, and denounce, and renounce some more or else thy name shall be added to the list of the exiled.
I wonder sometimes, what happened to evangelicalism while I was away. Long exiled and denounced myself, for the crime of being “based”before it was cool (and before that was a word), upon looking back in at the scene, I see that all in a sudden it’s cool to be a contrarian. Almost every online ministry has become fully polemical, when only a few years ago, debates were had as to whether polemics was a sin, and the verdict rendered, with me as the chief of sinners. And now, compared to the rest, I seem to be the reasonable, affable one.
I’m not complaining. It’s nice to see the World Evangelical War that I always said was a long time coming. It had to come, because it had to be fought. And now that it’s being fought, it has to be finished.
But back then, only a few years ago, some of the most hard-core pseudo-polemicists (although they’d never admit it), the ones who dedicate an entire month to ‘taking no quarter’ and spend hours each week from Phoenix excoriating one Christian personality after another, seem to have gone the other way. Adopting the tactics of the American Left, they use personalities as litmus tests. It’s a game, in fact. And the game works like this:
They say a name, that you are supposed to renounce. When you renounce the name, you instantly cede to them the moral high ground as commissioner of the evangelical Internet, final arbiter of righteousness, and install them upon the online mantle of Judge of the Quick and the Dead. Once they sit upon the throne of Religion Referee, in their hand the scepter by which they separate the sheep from the goats, you must now confer with their forthcoming judgments.
If you do renounce the name, you must renounce it again. And again. And then again, probably, much like a trained seal. And if you renounce that name, they will move down the list of the next-worse guy on the list, until they come to your friends, people you mostly agree with, and probably even your own mother. The list will not end, until you have renounced their enemy list, which happens to include everyone who disagrees with them.
If you do not renounce or denounce on their cue, you get added to the list as a compatriot. The only good reason you would not renounce them, they will publicly surmise, is that you agree with the unsavory character. After all, this must be the only reason. Whatever that person is (a bigot, a racist, a misogynist, an anti-semite, a mime, an albino banjo picker, a filthy Dispensationalist, whatever), then this means by illogical deduction that you are a closet whatever-that-is. You’re a secretive racist, a subversive anti-semite, an incognito albino banjo picker, and so on. They have, by the rules of this game, smoked out the devil’s foxes and you are one of them. And then, they broadcast to the world that there is a secretive global conspiracy of closet racists out there, and your refusal to denounce on cue proves it.
The rules of this game are well-known. Its a popular game the American Left plays with the American Right. Will you denounce Kanye? Will you denounce Nick Fuentes? Will you denounce Andrew Tate? Will you denounce Laura Loomer? Will you denounce Alex Jones? And it doesn’t matter if you’ve never quoted any of these figures or if they’ve never been on your Spotify playlist. And sadly, this game often works because conservatives are notoriously stupid, and many play along.
And just like that, the noose gets tighter for us. The next thing you know, with all of the radical crazies crossed off the list, the denunciation game goes into its 17th inning and you’re asked to denounce less-crazy figures until, at the last, it’s demanded of you to denounce Rand Paul and Jesus.
COREY STINKING MAHLER
I’ll make some mad with this claim, and make others call me a liar, but I genuinely know who he is only because his name is brought up by the denunciation game players. If I were listening to (for example), mainstream Christian Nationalists like Joel Webbon or William Wolfe, I’d have never heard the name (unless they are talking about the denunciation game).
Rather, his name is spoken most-often by those who hold the denunciation list, like Doug Wilson or James White. To them, he is most valuable. The denunciation has to start somewhere, and it seems easy enough to start with him.
My understanding - and I could be completely wrong here so take it with a grain of salt - is that he is an ex-Lutheran church member who was made an ex by the Lutherans, brought up on some kind of discipline for either his beliefs or his personality (I’m not sure which). He has a podcast called Stone Choir (awesome name, by the way, as I assume it’s taken from Luke 19:40), who is held in high regard by a good many people who identify as Christian Nationalist. According to their followers, who cross over with my own fellow travelers, the podcast covers topics that a lot of people are too afraid to cover. If you listen to their critics, its full of racism.
I’ve never listened.
I’m not avoiding an opinion, mind you. I’ve seen enough from Mahler’s X account to think he’s not my cup of tea. And further, Dustin Germain - who runs the Protestia account on X - has given Mahler a solid thumbs-down. Considering that Protestia and I share a brain, because Protestia came from my brain to begin with, I presume their opinion is my opinion. And to Stone Choir fans deriding me right now, telling me that I must listen in order to form an opinion (in case you can’t tell where this article is going), I don’t like being told what to do.
But see, this is not a denunciation. Telling you that I do not endorse their theology or opinions of race, if for nothing else I’m largely ignorant of it and don’t care to find out more, is not the same as a condemnation. And anything short of a full-throated condemnation will never be acceptable to those who play the denunciation game.
A HARD-EARNED AVERSION TO DENOUNCING ON CUE
As I wrote in A Tale to Tell: Our Story, in which I give an accounting for my extended absence from this world, I took the pseudepigraphal quote misattributed to John Wesley too far, “If you want to draw a crowd, set fire to yourself and they’ll come to watch you burn.”
That expression warmed the heart of a young man, but the older man that I’ve become has the burn injuries to prove it can be taken too far. I take credit for my own fight-readiness of years past, never having seen a hill I wouldn’t die on. But far too often, the foes I opposed, I opposed for no good reason, other than that the evangelical warlords wielded me like a weapon.
In that article, I gave the account of Phil Johnson telling me to ‘go after’ Leighton Flowers, and explained that the pointless years-long feud was with a guy I didn’t really mind that much (his soteriological Synergism aside). Johnson later denied this on X, but I recalled exactly where I was sitting at ShepCon when he placed the hit, and the date. If I were him, I’d deny it, too.
Sam Shamoun and Ergun Caner were the targets of a certain apologist in Phoenix, and I was the missile. I tangled with Servetus Diablos on behalf of Justin Peters, and so on. And I fended off the warriors of other men, like Jeff Dornik, dispatched to bring in my scalp by Brannon Howse. Or, Servetus Diablos dispatched to bring in my scalp by Jacob Prasch. Most of those feuds were stupid and trite (except for Servetus Diablos, who’s a son of the devil). Now that I think about it, most of those men were sons of the devil (Dornik and Flowers notwithstanding). But they were men with whom I had no actual personal beef.
I don’t mind fighting, when fighting was due. And I don’t mind scars from battles like that, such as when I waged a scorched-earth campaign against Rep. Walter McNutt and his evil, half-wit daughter, Tammy Christensen, when she stood up in a Republican primary town hall and announced herself pro-choice. I’d ride headlong into that rodeo again.
But the scars that I hate looking at are those caused for no good reason, those that remind me of the searing pain of losing friends and friendly acquaintances, just to get a pat on the head by evangelical celebrities I admired. In the end, it turns out those evangelical celebrity friends were no friends at all, and I was nothing but useful munitions to use against their enemies.
So when someone demands I denounce on cue, I have a sort of PTSD from the times that I regretted it.
STEVEN STINKING ANDERSON
You know Steven Anderson, right? Total nut job, I’m sure you’re aware. His famous sermon entitled “Pisseth Against the Wall” is a YouTube favorite, as is the one where he got tased by the Border Guard for defending his 4th Amendment rights (he was correct on that one, but it was still funny).
I had a...certain impression…of Anderson that was not positive. For one, he called Calvinists heretics. And on another, he spent way too much time asserting that Jesus “wore britches” (he insisted pants existed back then, and Jesus “didn’t wear dresses.” He’s into weird stuff, like that, and can be seen standing on his pulpit (literally) screaming most Sundays.
But, stopping into Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe one Sunday evening, I expected to find a church whose occupants resembled the Star Wars Cantina. But instead of a place occupied by weirdos, I found 400 relatively normal and beautiful people (of all races, which surprised me), engaging in what amounted to normal worship. Again, I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t normalcy.
After getting to know Steven a little bit, we chatted once in a while over the phone, and once he came on my podcast, and we politely told each other this shouldn’t be taken as fellow endorsements, and had a nice conversation. In recent days, with several of his kids going gay and denouncing their dad, I’ve winced when I’ve seen Protestia’s reporting.
Instead of chiming in with denouncements, I’ve…get this…hold on to your pants…this is crazy…prayed for him. When the whole world is denouncing somebody already, I don’t know why people feel the need to jump on the dogpile. It seems, somehow, unchristian.
For the record, he’s still crazy. And maybe he’s a terrible person. But you know what, it’s not my job to go around denouncing people all the time. I save that for Russell Moore.
THE DENUNCIATION LIST IS INCHING ITS WAY TOWARD YOU
Make no mistake about it. The denunciation game has a purpose. It’s a rhetorical tactic by lazy debaters who want to - instead of making an argument that you’re wrong - instead settle for just proving that you’re bad. If you play along, you must keep playing, until you finally reach the point you have to say, “Okay. I don’t agree with this name. They’re alright.” And then, you lose.
If you don’t play the game, while it will be reported you suddenly affirm everyone you don’t denounce (a dumb jump in logic if ever there was one), there’s another reason for refusing to play that you can amplify.
And it’s this:
Whoever meddles in a quarrel not his own is like one who takes a passing dog by the ears (Proverbs 26:17).
Our response must be, “Who do you think you are, to go picking fights with the entire world, and then demand that I pick those fights with you?” I look back with bitter gall at those who so easily got me to pick up arms on their behalf, and at myself, for doing it. I’d urge you not to do it, either.
What quarrel with Corey Mahler do I have? I don’t. And I don’t want one. I’ve got enough quarrels to worry about with James White, and so do the Christian Nationalists. Are we really so stupid as to be badgered into opening up war on another front, just because a man with tattoo sleeves beats his chest? No thanks.
MOST OF US HAVE BEEN CANCELED BEFORE. IT’S NOT FUN.
The evangelical and conservative world has now emerged from the Dark Ages of Internet censorship, crushing peer pressure, and coerced silence. We survived Covid hysteria, the #MeToo Movement, #BlackLivesMatter and more astro-turfed, manufactured crises and we survived it intact.
I was canceled so many times I can’t recall. I don’t much like it. I was canceled for criticizing Calvinists, like when Frank Turk of Pyromaniacs denounced me for criticizing Russell Moore back in 2013 (because back then, they thought Calvinism made someone trustworthy, no matter what). I was canceled during the days of Ergun Caner. I was canceled for referring to Jackie Hill Perry as a “militant butch black woman.” I was canceled when I called Karen Swallow Prior gay affirming. I was canceled when I got a DUI on a prescription drug. I’ve been canceled more times than Kanye. And each time, different audiences swore me off. Heck, the largest SBC blog in the world tried to organize an official boycott and blacklist of my websites (which worked as well as asking people to not think about a Pink Elephant).
If you think I’m going to take part in Cancel Culture, given the things I’ve gone through, you’re absolutely out of your ever-loving mind. When I said my line about Jackie Hill Perry, that “the gospel is not the exclusive property of militant butch black women” in response to her tweet that “the gospel is not the exclusive property of old white men,” my friends helped cancel me. Phil Johnson succumbed to the mob and swore me off for my pugnaciousness (while privately liking the comment).
As I told Phil at the time, he fed the beast. He refilled the mob’s torches and sharpened their pitchforks. He reinforced their learned behavior; mobs are effective. And I warned him, that because he gave into the mob once, and they knew he would bow, there was no stopping them. They would persist, and not only with me, but with all of his friends who the mob would one day want him to denounce.
I’m not playing that game, and neither should you. For us, it’s enough to declare that if you want to know what we think about a thing, listen to what we say about that thing. But if you want to lump us into your enemies list for no good reason, you can do that without our assistance.
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