James White, the once-revered apologist who carved out a name for himself in a dusty, rented church office with nothing but a webcam and a sidekick co-host, stared into the lens and shouted: “Sit down and shut up!”
For longtime followers, the moment was surreal. This was the same James White who, for years, emphasized the tail-end of 1 Peter 3:15—that we must defend the faith “with gentleness and respect.” But that James White seems long gone. In his place is someone sharper, angrier, and far less concerned with winning souls than winning fights, even the petty ones. In fact, lately it seems for White that the pettier, the better.
My own relationship with White was complex. The first time I listened to The Dividing Line, I turned it off in disgust. He was critiquing a William Lane Craig debate—not simply offering feedback, but eviscerating it with smugness and self-congratulation. I was excited to hear Craig (then, new to me) put an atheist in his place, but White was focused on telling the audience how he would have said this or that differently, or would have been better had he been invited to debate instead. Still, I came back. Not for his demeanor, but for his intellect. For all his bravado, the man knew his theology, and that made his content worth enduring.
Over time, the abrasiveness became background noise. Even his chest-thumping challenges—begging opponents to enter the octagon of ideas—faded into the background. Eventually, I found myself agreeing with his takes, even adopting his theological antagonisms. White had a magnetic pull; the more he disliked someone, the more you wanted to dislike them, too.
When I got to know him personally—through the IRC channel, through shared interviews, through my own Reformation Montana conference—I came to see both the brilliance and the blemishes up close. One encounter stands out: after picking him up from the airport, we drove him to a Whole Foods to accommodate his dietary requests. For ten minutes, he mocked a mutual friend, Squirrel, in front of us all while Squirrel just laughed it off. When he exited the vehicle, a fellow pastor turned to me and said, “Promise me, JD. No matter how famous you get, never turn into that.”
Still, I respected him. He was a teacher, and I was willing to overlook a lot to learn from him.
That changed after a minor disagreement about Pope Francis, of all things. Pulpit & Pen had published an article reporting the pope's claim that the cross was a “failure.” White rebuked us publicly, accusing us of lacking charity. I responded by explaining the Jesuit context—that Liberation Theology shapes Francis’ view of the cross as a symbol of victimhood. I believed it was a fair pushback. White didn’t. He devoted several DL episodes to reprimanding me, incensed that I would challenge him so openly.
What followed was a steady stream of personal attacks—escalating whenever P&P or Protestia was vindicated. When Hank Hanegraaff converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, White insisted we were overreacting. But when Hanegraaff explicitly denied sola fide, White dropped the issue without acknowledgment.
Tensions mounted further when I doxed his ally “TurretinFan” after repeated attacks. White was no doubt embarrassed, because their claim was that TurretinFan needed to keep a low profile because he was U.S. Intelligence, but it turns out he was just a copyright attorney with something embarrassing on his record. Yes, I regret the tactic, but it revealed how petty the drama had become—how deep the bad blood had gotten.
Then came the “Booze and Tattoos” incident. We republished a Christian News Network article about a fundraiser involving alcohol and tattoos. White’s outrage was disproportionate. He accused us of slander—despite the factual accuracy of the report—simply because it involved people close to him. From that point, reconciliation was no longer on the table.
More recently, White’s hatred for me became undeniable. After nearly dying from Xanax dependency and withdraw, he said publicly, “Thank God.” I saw the clip myself. A dozen times, I watched it over and over. I just couldn’t fathom that a former friend, and a Christian, would thank God for my calamity that almost claimed my life (in more ways than one). I’ve had a lot of terrible things said about me, that ranks up there with the least Christian. And despite multiple corrections from Protestia and even his own followers, he mischaracterized the medication as opioids or pain meds —because to him, facts take a back seat to narrative.
More and more, White appears to show compassion only to those outside the faith: Muslims, Roman Catholics, Mormons, atheists, etc. Meanwhile, those closest to him doctrinally—Reformed Baptists, Calvinists, or just outspoken evangelicals—are treated as enemies. I call this the White Wrath Paradigm: the closer you are to White’s theology, the more likely you are to feel his contempt.
This isn’t just bitterness. It’s economics. The Reformed evangelical space has limited donor bandwidth, and ministries like Apologia, Grace to You, G3, Founders, and The Dividing Line compete for it. I wrote about this in Insight to Incite, calling it The Reformed Evangelical Game of Thrones. Many disputes are less about doctrine and more about dominance. After Josh Buice’s scandal, few are now doubting my assertion that dirty, petty rivalries abound behind the scenes in the Reformed online fiefdom.
As I’ve made the case before, I believe that much of the animus toward Christian Nationalists—like Joel Webbon’s Right Response Ministries or the New Christendom Press—is driven not by doctrinal disagreement, but marketplace competition.
But what concerns me most about White now is his blindness—to his tone, to his impact, and to his diminishing credibility. The Dividing Line no longer feels like an apologetics ministry. It feels like a personal grievance journal. Even when theology is discussed, it’s framed through the lens of who James White thinks is dumb or unworthy of attention.
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White no longer makes arguments; he issues pronouncements. And if you disagree, you’re beneath him. On issues like Christian Nationalism, his only contribution has been ridicule. Yes, he debated Corey Mahler on the issue of race. But otherwise, he has pronounced his position and expects others to fall in line, with little if any attention given to the substance of arguments that are doctrinally presented on the broader subject. For James White, the debate over Christian Nationalism is a conversation about personalities and individual figures, and why they’re bad…not about why their arguments are wrong.
His silence on Apologia scandals—especially Jeff Durbin’s use of secretly recorded confessions to publicly shame critics and former members—is deafening. The hypocrisy is glaring: he decries being recorded without consent, yet defends a ministry that weaponizes such recordings.
Even worse, his obsessive online behavior—yelling at anonymous accounts, wasting hours on social media spats—feels beneath the dignity of any Christian elder. And now, with the doxing of @DefiantBaptist, he’s crossed yet another line. All over a “no homo” joke—juvenile, yes, but hardly grounds for public ruin.
Protestia removed White temporarily from its “No Fly List” (a list of people they do not cover or interact with either because the relationship is too caustic or because we’ve carried their water in the past, and regret it) because this behavior is indefensible. His threats against podcast sponsors (as he has done mine in the past), his demands that certain figures be ‘canceled’ or excommunicated, his attempts to influence the elders of other churches—it reeks of authoritarianism masquerading as personal righteousness.
And now, the icing on the cake: White gleefully shared letters supposedly announcing DefiantBaptist’s discipline, from his church.
Imagine that. Gleeful at schism. Pleased that a man is put at odds with his church. It’s such unabated, ungodly wickedness without a hint of pastoral concern or even basic human emotion. And you can see his sidekick, the anon-hunter who should have White’s tattoo guy stamp ‘no homo’ on his forehead in permanent ink, who likely hunted down Defiant Baptist and urged his associates, church, and employer to ruin his life, chiming in below to congratulate him.
But...about those letters.
One letter, that Eli acknowledges having seen, was sent only to the doxer. In other words, the doxer was Eli, despite him denying it repeatedly. So here is James White, getting the gayest straight man on the planet (who was a pro-Antifa leftist only a short time ago), to hunt down a critic and try to ruin his life. What a pair, they are.
What’s more telling is how easily White fell for it. So desperate to crush dissent, he didn’t notice the bait. He used to teach us how to think. Now he tells us what to think—and expects us to be grateful.
This was the troll to end all trolls, and I really have to give credit to the genius who thought it up. But how would he know that White would fall for it? How did he know that White would be eager to spread the word and congratulate himself that he was able to discipline another church's member from afar for the sin of laughing at him?
It's simple. White is predictable, and he is blind to his own pride. Of course he would spike that football. Of course, overcome with excitement at church conflict. It was obvious to the schemer, bless their hearts, that church schism would be exciting to James White, and something to toast about.
At the end of the day, James White certainly has not had the last laugh. He will be rightly seen as petty and small. And that's a shame, because there was once a time he was far more than that. There was once a time he led us into maturity, and taught us doctrine, and elevated our spirits to align with our better angels.
If you've followed White for long, you've noticed a change in his outfits and personal appearance. Beginning with his yoking with Apologia, his outfits have gotten flashier and flashier. He's gone from bowties to pimp chains, from Cosby sweaters to Dr. Evil suits, and the only thing louder than his shirt choices is his screaching into the web cam at invisible people. It seems very much to be embematic of his pride, which grows greater by the day.
The elaborate joke, which I'll christen the "Fake and Gay Scandal of 2025," is actually no laughing matter, despite the fact that there's a laughingstock at the center of it. But I want to be more charitable to James White than he's ever been to me, or to any soul who has dared to differ with him (unless they're a Jihadi). Redemption actually does exist. He can turn back, and become the James White we all learned to love and appreciate over the years. Should he humble himself a bit, and go back to his first loves - teaching us stuff - his audience will even return, or at least a good number of them. But until then, he'll continue to self-sabotage the impact he once had for good, and the legacy that desperately needs rebuilt.
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