Somewhere along the way, I grew tired of conferences and stopped going. In fact, I know when it was. It was after Rosaria Butterfield - before repenting for her then wishy-washy stance on trans issues - approached me at my booth at G3 and literally screamed at me, pointing her boney finger in my face and accusing me of “attacking” her “good friend,” Karen Swallow Prior. I just stood there in a daze, letting her go on a tirade with her husband standing sheepishly behind her. A few minutes later, and Josh Buice had sent G3 security to send me packing for “screaming at Rosaria Butterfield’s best friend.”
Buice was under the impression that Karen Swallow Prior was somewhere in the crowd with Rosaria. And being five years behind relevancy as usual, Buice had no idea who Prior was or why she was problematic. And during her sermon talk at the conference, Butterfield used it to excoriate me and belittle the entire field of polemics in general.
After that, the only conferences I went to were the ones where I was speaking. In fact, the last time I went to a conference where I wasn’t speaking it was Revoice, in which I put on my only pink shirt and combed my hair, which was my best effort at looking gay. It didn’t work, and they turned me around at the door, saying, “We know it’s you, JD.”
The point is, I’m not much of one for conferences. And this natural reluctance to be near crowds was at the forefront of my mind, making my way to the Christ is King: How to Defeat Trash World conference last weekend.
Besides, I wasn’t sure if I was going to interrupt a cross burning or something. At least, that’s the impression you would get from Joel Webbon’s critics, if you were silly enough to lend them any credibility to their opinions.
TRASH WORLD AND RUFFLED FEATHERS
In the lead-up to the conference, it stirred up more than its share of headlines. The event’s been called everything from a “dangerous fringe fest” to a gathering of Neo Nazis, depending on who’s talking. I went in curious, having heard the accusations—racism, extremism, you name it—and wanting to see what was really going on. What I found didn’t match the loudest voices in the room. It was a mix of energy, ideas, and people that felt more alive than the grim picture painted by the critics.
The real controversy was that the folks running this show didn’t climb the usual ladder. They sidestepped the gatekeepers—those who’ve long decided who gets a microphone and who doesn’t—and built something on their own terms. That’s rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Christian Nationalism, as they frame it, isn’t about fitting in with the crowd; it’s a push against what they see as a crumbling culture. Whether you buy that or not, it’s clear their approach has hit a nerve.
The pushback has been intense. Critics have dug up old dirt and passed off a letter sent out by Webbon to his ministry partners (now turned enemies) to an effeminate muckraker, thrown around terms like “racist” and “anti-Semite” and even got caught red-handed in what was clearly a Trans-Atlantic frame job to paint Webbon as a Hitler fan, who’s had to endure a full-court press to turn people off. But the conference went ahead anyway, and the people behind it didn’t seem too rattled. They’ve kept their focus, and that alone says something about how they operate, which as I describe it, as a “Ride or Die” ethos.
A DIFFERENT VIBE
The atmosphere reminded me a bit of the 2024 Republican National Convention—not in politics, but in that sense of having dodged a few bullets. Webbon had been through the wringer—ecclesiastical show trials in the court of public opinion, boycotts, public pile-ons, a few metaphoric assassination attempts —and there he was, still standing. The mood wasn’t heavy or bitter, though. It was upbeat, almost like a victory lap.
I’ve been to events like the Shepherd’s Conference and G3 conferences before, and this one felt distinct. The crowd was younger, louder in a good way, and sharp on the theology but lacking the pretentiousness. There wasn’t that hero-worship vibe you sometimes see, no fanboyism, no one was tripping over themselves to shake hands with the speakers. There was Andrew Isker, fresh off of Tucker Carlson’s program, sitting with his family and with a curious lack of a line to shake his hand. ShepCon is especially bad at this, as 50 year-old men turn into gushing girls like they were about to meet the Beatles, whenever MacArthur or Steve Lawson stepped down from the stage. This was a fresh change.
If you’ve followed the chatter, you might picture this group as a bunch of hooded figures with arms raised in perpetual “my heart goes out to you” gestures. That’s not what I ran into. There were young families—parents with kids, chatting and laughing. No crosses on fire, no salutes, just people who seemed to care about their faith and where they think the world’s headed. The gap between the rumors and the reality was pretty stark.
Calvin Robinson’s name came up a lot beforehand—his invite kicked off a storm of criticism because, despite not technically being a Papist, is close enough to make the Reformed pretty uneasy. But inside the room, it barely registered. The folks I talked to understood that his presence wasn’t an endorsement of Catholicism. Most saw it as a condemnation of Jeff Durbin, who chose schismaticism over fellowship, and whose place Robinson was given. They saw Robinson not as “one of us,” but as an outsider who saw things from an outside perspective, not a poster boy for their cause. It wasn’t about agreeing with Robinson on justification, because that wasn’t the point of the conference; it was about hearing him out. That’s not the move of a group scared of questions.
Even the X account crowd - the anonymous ones who get flak for hiding behind their keyboards - turned out to be regular people. No stereotypes of greasy loners here; they were guys with jobs, manners, and solid thoughts. I didn’t see any fatties or Cheeto-stained fingers. They didn’t strike me as the unhinged types their critics make them out to be, but good natured Theology-Bros, not unlike the type you’d find at more boring and less relevant conferences previously mentioned. I spoke to them a while. Some worked in finance, some raised livestock, some traded crypto, but all of them were seemingly normal human beings.
And the conference wasn’t all speeches and note-taking. There was a social side—younger folks with red lanyards marking them as single and ready to mingle. It wasn’t just socializing for the sake of it; it felt like part of a bigger picture, like they were trying to build something lasting.
I found people to be kind, generous, and affable to me personally, which I appreciated. A few hit me with “I grew up listening to you,” which made me wonder when it was I got old, but that tells you how young the crowd really was.
THE CRITICS
The folks against this movement haven’t held back. They’ve leaned hard into labels—bigot, extremist, whatever sticks—hoping to scare people off. They’ve dragged up old stories, cooked up conspiracies (being funded by Qatar is my favorite, hands-down), and shouted loud enough to drown out any reply. It’s a lot of effort to shut down something they claim isn’t worth hearing. But the louder they get, the more it feels like they’re worried about losing the argument.
They say Christian Nationalism is about hate, but I didn’t see that. Families weren’t there chanting slurs—they were swapping ideas. I overheard conversations about cloth diapers, raw milk, Bitcoin and the Bible. It’s almost like the critics need a monster to fight, and when one doesn’t show, they invent it. Meanwhile, the conference rolled on, unbothered.
Neither Webbon nor any of the other speakers have so much as blinked at their critics. They’ve stuck to their guns, saying what they think without tiptoeing around. Agree with them or not, there’s something to that—keeping your voice when everyone’s telling you to pipe down. The event pulled off a mix of big-picture thinking and a down-to-earth feel that kept people engaged. It wasn’t flashy, but it didn’t need to be.
My wife and I cut out early, as I grew homesick for the farm and was overwhelmed being in a crowd for the first time in several years, and the introvert in me was uncomfortable with the hand-shaking. But even leaving early, I couldn’t shake what I’d seen. This wasn’t the trainwreck the critics promised. It was a group of people doing their thing, facing down the flak, and coming out fine on the other side.
Meanwhile, one of the conference’s biggest critics who has repeatedly attacked the gathering because a pseudo-Papist was speaking - the very same critic who gladly broke bread in fellowship in an Interfaith Dialogue with a radical Islamic cleric - was also busy this weekend. That conference revolved around a debate he had on the topic of whether or not the King James is the best Bible translation. I couldn’t think of a better dividing line between the Christian Nationalists and their chief critics; one group is trying to save the world for their children, and the other is arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a needle.
Perhaps that’s the reason for the level of enthusiasm among Christian Nationalists, compared to those following the old gatekeepers. People have tired of the same old debates about frivolous nerd stuff and want to be a part of something making a difference. In Temple, Texas, a strong four-figures came together to discuss defeating Trash World. At the same time, their critics joined in solidarity to host Thrash World, just a place of noisy criticism and disjointed wailing and flailing about to complain about those trying to make a practical difference in the world. It turns out, those vying for their fair share of the attention in the world of online evangelical niches get pretty upset when people stop paying attention their pointless debates, and just want somebody to blame (and maybe somebody to call Nazis).
The conference didn’t feel like the end of something—it felt like a start. Whatever you think of their take, they’ve got people listening, connecting, and thinking. It’s not my call to say where it’s headed, but it’s hard to argue it’s not going somewhere.
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