A Texas pastor is under fire after telling white parents they’re “failing” their kids if they don’t teach them to avoid Black people, and the clip is blowing up online. Joel Webbon, a self-described Christian nationalist who leads Covenant Bible Church near Austin, made the comments on his Right Response Ministries podcast and insisted that a crowd of Black strangers is “30 times more dangerous” than a crowd of white strangers. The video rocketed across X via Right Wing Watch and has drawn swift condemnation.
In the sermon, Webbon urges white Christian parents to have what he calls “The Talk,” not about police safety, the version Black families have long had to give their kids, but about staying away from certain neighborhoods and, pointedly, from Black people they don’t know. He frames it as life-saving “truth,” accusing parents who teach racial equality of lying to their children. Monitors who posted the clip highlight the language and its intent, painting an entire group as a threat.
Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon says white Christian parents need to have “the talk” with their children about avoiding black people: “It is actually a failure of your parental duty … if you lie to them and you say all people and all races of people in our country are… pic.twitter.com/GwUksCJ0aE
— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) September 9, 2025
Webbon, leader of Covenant Bible Church and founder of Right Response Ministries, tries to carve out an exception, saying Black members within his own church are fine, but “strangers” are the problem. That qualifier didn’t soften the backlash. Reporters noted the remarks went viral, topping a million views on Right Wing Watch’s feed, and quoted scholars who called the “30 times” claim irresponsible and unsupported by any data.
If Webbon’s name sounds familiar, it’s because he’s been pushing a hard-line Christian nationalist message for a while. Earlier this year, he argued on his show that America “belongs to Christians” and that non-Christians, explicitly including Jews, Hindus, and Muslims, should have “no place” in American leadership. Those statements were widely covered and documented with direct quotations from his March podcast.
Per capita offending rates per 1,000…
Blacks against Whites ~11.6
Whites against Blacks ~0.38
Ratio ~31:1
*A white person is 31 times more likely to be victimized by a black person than the other way around. pic.twitter.com/GNlPJyXYi2
— Joel Webbon (@rightresponsem) September 8, 2025
Critics say this is the throughline, a theology fused with politics that sorts people into insiders and outsiders, then slaps moral certainty on top. That’s why the new clip hit such a nerve, it isn’t a stray remark, it’s consistent with a worldview that assigns danger to entire communities and “duty” to the parents who teach it. One outlet captured the core of Webbon’s pitch plainly, if you tell your white child to love all races, you’re putting that child in harm’s way. To Webbon, that’s “a failure of your parental duty.”
The response has been swift and loud. Civil-rights advocates and journalists called the sermon what it is, racial fear-mongering packaged as parental advice, while researchers warned that preaching bogus “crime math” fuels division and can green-light discrimination in everyday life. One university scholar said the “30 times” line is pure hyperbole with no basis in fact, but powerful precisely because it flatters existing prejudices.
Checking in on far right “pastor” Joel Webbon this morning 😬
His timeline yesterday was about as awful as you expect. Bloodlust is not a fruit of the Spirit
“And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?” pic.twitter.com/LG8zzTWim3
— Ryan Duff (@ryancduff) September 10, 2025
Webbon, for his part, hasn’t backed down. He has interacted with conservative influencers cheering him on and cast the outrage as proof he’s telling uncomfortable truths. But the receipts are public, the clip, the quotes, the pattern. And beyond the instant outrage cycle, the stakes are real. When a pastor with an audience tells parents that avoiding Black people is love, he’s not just talking about “safety.” He’s teaching segregation, and calling it virtue.
It’s a clear, on-brand message from a pastor who has said out loud that America should be run by and for his version of Christians, and that warning kids to shun Black people is good parenting. The video is out there, people can judge it for themselves.
I’d tell MY kids to avoid racist jerks like him.