Conservative Christian pastor Josh Buice trolled himself out of power

The influential pastor resigned after his digital smear campaign targeting Christian allies was exposed

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A conservative zealot who ran a Baptist church and founded an influential Christian conference has been punished after the Christians around him discovered proof of his secret digital life.

Josh Buice appearing as one of his many identities

Josh Buice (rhymes with “lice”) is one of those right-wing “theobro” trolls who hates “wokeness” more than anything. A couple of years ago, he announced that the church he leads, Pray’s Mill Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, was quitting the Southern Baptist Convention because the SBC had become… too liberal. Somehow. The anti-LGBTQ, anti-women, historically racist organization had accepted the “social justice agenda,” he argued, by symbolically accepting topics like critical race theory and intersectionality.

Actually, he went further than that:

He was one of the organizers of the 2018 “Statement on Social Justice,” which warned that liberal ideas about race — in particular, critical race theory — and women’s leadership had infiltrated evangelical churches. The statement was issued a few months after a number of high-profile evangelical leaders had gathered in Memphis to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of the death of civil rights leader and pastor Martin Luther King Jr. and to denounce racism in the modern church.

He’s also the founder of the G3 Conference, a biennial gathering of Reformed Baptists that pushes patriarchal right-wing theology.

Given those roles, it seems like it would take an earthquake of a scandal to bring him down.

That earthquake apparently came in the form of multiple alt accounts that he ran on social media in order to anonymously trash his own colleagues.

On Monday, the Elders of Pray’s Mill Baptist Church and the Board of G3 Ministries issued a joint statement explaining that they had uncovered “irrefutable evidence” that Buice operated those fake accounts.

In recent weeks, the elders of PMBC uncovered irrefutable evidence that Dr. Buice has, for the past three years, operated at least four anonymous social media accounts, two anonymous email addresses, and two Substack platforms. These accounts were used to publicly and anonymously slander numerous Christian leaders, including faithful pastors (some of whom have spoken at G3 conferences), several PMBC elders, and others. These actions were not only sinful in nature but deeply divisive, causing unnecessary suspicion and strife within the body of Christ, and particularly within the eldership of PMBC.

(How the hell anyone with four kids and high-maintenance jobs can handle multiple sock puppet accounts and two Substacks just for the purpose of trolling is beyond me. Some people need to touch grass.)

The statement never provides any links to those accounts or websites. We don’t know what he said or how they found out he was behind those accounts. But they apparently had their suspicions for at least two years, because the statement says they confronted him about them multiple times, only for Buice to deny “any knowledge of them.” He continued denying everything for hours after they presented him with proof of what he did.

Eventually, he confessed. Kind of. The statement says “Only after further evidence was presented and much pleading with him to walk in the light did Josh finally confess to his actions,” but that doesn’t say Josh confessed when he was confronted with the evidence. It may have happened days later when he couldn’t figure out a new lie to defend himself—hardly the response from someone who was genuinely repentant.

He’s now “presently disqualified from serving as an elder” at his church… but the Elders implied he could return in the future. As for the G3 Conference, this year’s events have now been canceled, though the organization will continue and the conference could return two years from now. The ministry even says “his content will remain accessible via the G3 website and G3+.” Because they still believe he’s worth listening to… when he’s posing as himself. It seems like they’re only angry he used anonymous accounts to do privately what he was already doing publicly—being a professional asshole—except he was using those accounts to go after some of their allies instead of their shared enemies.

Neither of those temporary punishments are actual losses to society. Both of them leave the door open for Buice to return to his positions after a time of repentance and forgiveness and (let’s face it) everyone forgetting that Buice is nothing more than an immature troll with the mindset of a teenage bully who cosplays as a religious leader.

Without knowing what he did on those alt accounts, though, it’s hard to understand how seriously to take his actions.

When hate-preacher Mark Driscoll used the online pseudonym “William Wallace II” to make anonymous comments online, we knew he complained about living in a “pussified nation” alongside “male lesbians.” When hate-preacher Dale Partridge tweeted as his wife in order to praise himself, he was dumb enough to forget to switch over to his alt. (Partridge now says Buice’s punishments are the result of “cancel culture.”) There was also that white Republican lawmaker who made the same mistake of not switching accounts, then tweeting that he was a “black gay guy” for whom “Obama did nothing.”

Conservative extremists have a habit of creating alternative accounts, often to boost their main accounts or to go after their critics (or anyone who isn’t as extreme as they are). If their arguments were any good, they wouldn’t need to do this since others would come to their defense, but they’re not, so the only allies they can find are their own alternate identities.

For guys like Buice, lying is always okay if you’re doing it to promote religious extremism. Ironically, Buice once banned someone from attending a G3 conference because they used social media to criticize some of the speakers. There’s a reason this old tweet was making the rounds yesterday:

But the statement from the church Elders and G3 Ministries Board makes it sound like the good guys caught the one bad guy. That’s the wrong way to look at this. For years, these organizations promoted Buice’s utterly deranged views. They apparently plan to do so again in the future once this controversy dies down.

The statement doesn’t tell us if the groups are more bothered by the anonymity, Buice’s denials, or the substance of things he said under those other accounts? Without giving the public a chance to know what he said when he thought no one would catch him, they’re just furthering a cover-up.

Christians who are interested in honesty and integrity should ditch both organizations entirely, not just distance themselves from the figurehead who got caught.

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