She’s baaaaaack!

It’s February 2025 and Paula White is back at the White House.

On Feb. 7 at the National Prayer Breakfast, President Donald Trump announced the (re)creation of the White House Faith Office, to be led by White. She also led this office in his first term.

On the surface, this doesn’t seem to amount to much politically. Nothing of substance seemed to have happened during White’s first term. Trump, for the support MAGA evangelicals consistently provide, has not reciprocated with many major appointments of evangelicals like White. As much as they seem like Trump insiders, in many ways they are as much outliers now as they were when they were considered the right-wing fringe of American Christianity.

White’s influence, however, goes beyond efforts related to faith. She used her first stint in the White House as a political arm of the Trump campaign. Her job was campaigning, not governing. Her approach to life and ministry intersects with Trump’s politics. At this intersection, we can learn much more about both White and Trump.

George’s Lakoff offers a frame of reference that is helpful in telling White’s story, the “Rags to Riches” motif. According to Lakoff, the heroine starts out poor and unknown (the Precondition). She experiences hardships, failure, and the odds are against her (the Buildup). Through an exercise of will and discipline she does something extraordinary (the Main Event), achieves success (the Purpose) and recognition (the Result) and gains fame, wealth and power (Consequence).

White fits that rags-to-riches narrative. Here’s how it goes.

The Precondition

Paula Michelle White (born April 20, 1966) is an American televangelist, apostolic leader in the independent charismatic movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation and is a proponent of prosperity theology.

She started out poor and unknown. White uses this in her appeal for financial contributions. “How did I get to the White House from the trailer?” she asks.

In her sermons and books, White leans into her poverty-stricken, troubled childhood. She exhibits a template well-used by edgy, raw, emotion-filled evangelists. The story is one of sin, repentance, faithfulness and prosperity. It is hard to tell if this approach started with televangelists or media star Oprah Winfrey and novelist Anne Lamott, but audiences can’t seem to get enough of these dramatic confessional stories.

Phillip Luke Sinitiere, in Holy Mavericks, notes the connection: “As the ‘Oprah Winfrey’ of the evangelical world, White finesses dialogues with celebrity experts about self-actualization and the nitty-gritty, day-to-day realities of life. By integrating religion with American longings for youth, beauty, health and sexual fulfillment, she offers an empowering and self-therapeutic brand of Christianity that teaches people how to become physically fit, mentally tough and biblically literate, while trusting in the promises of God for dramatic change in life.”

“The rags-to-riches narrative has been so identified with the American dream that it is hard to discount its power over American voters.”

The rags-to-riches narrative has been so identified with the American dream that it is hard to discount its power over American voters. Presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Barack Obama have provided us with stirring rags-to-riches narratives.

White has no theological training, but she graduated from Seneca Valley High School in Germantown, Md.

Her conversion to Christianity took place at the Damascus Church on God in 1984. White later claimed to have received a vision from God shortly after her conversion.

The Build-Up

White underwent a series of hardships. She tells this story in her sermons., referring to herself as “a messed up Mississippi girl.” Her messages have the sound of the deep pathos and tragedy of country music themes. Among evangelicals, this is a staple. Divorce, remarriage; divorce a second time, remarriage; drug addiction, sexual abuse, financial failure, and an array of long, sad stories of failure fill White’s books and sermons. With persistence and God’s help, she became a famous televangelist and megachurch pastor.

The Main Event

The usual rags-to-riches story shows the heroine as a strong-willed and determined woman who does something extraordinary. White, however, is also selling a redemption story and that means the hero is God.

As she often tells her audiences, “Without you, Paula White Ministries would not be what it is today. Thank you for believing in a ‘messed-up Mississippi girl’ with a big God and a big dream. Together we are transforming lives, healing hearts and saving souls.”

“Thank you for believing in a ‘messed-up Mississippi girl’ with a big God and a big dream.”

Of all the statements White has made, one stands out as the paradigm that most connects her to Trump: “God kept opening doors until eventually, 19 years ago, I get a phone call out of the blue, from this man named Donald Trump.”

She recalls the day in 2002 when the twice-divorced New York real estate mogul reached out to her after catching her show on a local Florida TV station. “He said, ‘You’re fantastic.’ He said, ‘You have the “it” factor.’ I said, ‘Sir, we call that the anointing.’”

White said the Lord told her to help Trump know God. “I took on that assignment never knowing that one day that man God told me to show him who he was would become the president of the United States of America.”

The Purpose and The Result

According to Phillip Luke Sinitiere, White became a star virtually overnight through her television ministry. She recorded the first broadcast of Paula White Today in December 2001, and by 2006 her show appeared on nine television networks, including Trinity Broadcasting Network, Daystar and Black Entertainment Television. She quickly secured a loyal following by revealing the intimate details of her troubled history and relating her life story of triumph through tenacity.

The intersecting of White and Trump begins with the media stardom of both. Without question, Trump is a media star, a creature of television. Jennifer Mercieca, in Demagogue for President, calls Trump a “rhetorical, media, public relations genius.”

The Redemption Narrative

Within the rags-to-riches narrative there is a deeper spiritual narrative: Redemption. “They called me trailer trash,” White said in a sermon. “But our God’s in the recycling business.”

Combine the redemption narrative with the rags-to-riches narrative, and you have an invincible framework. Critics have trouble making headway against these powerful American myths.

Within the frame of the Redemption Narrative, there are three major faith-related components to the White-Trump partnership.

First, “anointing” has much to do with the narrative of White and Trump. As crazy as Lance Wallnau’s story is about how God told him Trump was “God’s anointed,” it is the major narrative that stuck in the minds of evangelical supporters of Trump.

After the assassination attempt, Trump doubled down on the “anointed” frame. He said in his second inaugural address: “Just a few months ago, in a beautiful Pennsylvania field, an assassin’s bullet ripped through my ear. But I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason. I was saved by God to make America great again.”

Call it the “it factor,” the “anointing,” or charisma — whatever — we are dealing with celebrity status, big stars and media personalities. It all mixes seamlessly into a MAGA world that is at the same time deeply evangelical and deeply secular.

White’s career tells us what we need to know about Trump’s career. What she has accomplished in the independent charismatic world as a prophet of God, Trump now accomplishes in the political realm as God’s anointed.

Perhaps the political pundits underestimated the evangelicals. Stephanie McCrummen, writing for The Atlantic, “The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows,” says: “At this point, tens of millions of believers — about 40% of American Christians, including Catholics, according to a recent Denison University survey — are embracing an alluring, charismatic movement that has little use for religious pluralism, individual rights or constitutional democracy. It is mystical, emotional and, in its way, wildly utopian. It is transnational, multiracial and unapologetically political.”

The “army of God” believes God speaks through flawed women and men like White and Trump. There are demonic forces — liberals, socialists, academics, feminists and Democrats — who are attempting to take down Trump and destroy America. The church is God’s army with a holy mission to claim all of earth and all of its institutions as humanity gets closer to the end time.

White represents the beliefs of this army of God. She claims: “Wherever I go, God rules. When I walk on White House grounds, God walks on White House grounds. I have every right and authority to declare the White House holy ground, because I was standing there and where I stand is holy.”

Second, the White-Trump intersection displays its power most effectively in their rhetoric. White will say anything. Trump will say anything.

“White will say anything. Trump will say anything.”

A video of White at a prayer meeting after the 2020 election shows her speaking in tongues and summoning angels from the coast of Africa and South America. “I hear a sound of victory, the Lord says it is done,” she intones. “For angels have even been dispatched from Africa right now. … In the name of Jesus from South America, they’re coming here.”

White told her congregation she was transported to the throne room of God.

“There was a mist that was coming off the water, and I went to the throne of God, and I didn’t see God’s face clearly, but I saw the face of God. … I knew it was the face of God. … I didn’t come out of that really until the next morning.”

Here she runs into some biblical difficulty. As God told Moses in Exodus 33:20, “You cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Exodus 34:29 says, “When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the covenant law in his hands, he was not aware that his face was radiant because he had spoken with the Lord.”

In claiming both Moses and the vision of Isaiah for herself, White leaves out the confession of sin by Isaiah and claims the mantle on behalf of herself and Trump. She claims she has been to the throne room of God. She saw the face of God clearly. She knew it was the face of God. “He put a mantle, a very specific mantle, a new mantle coming upon me, the color was a goldish, a yellowish gold, and I saw the earth for a moment. He put me in the White House.”

Trump makes equally outrageous political statements. He claimed DEI caused the midair collision between a military helicopter and a passenger jet in Washington, D.C. He said Gaza should be emptied of Palestinians and turned into the “Riviera of the Mideast.” According to Trump, immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of Americans, and they “are eating the dogs and cats” in Springfield, Ohio.

Third, the rags-to-riches and redemption narratives are powerful parts of the American dream. Lakoff observes, “When you accept a particular narrative, you ignore or hide realities that contradict it.” White and Trump’s audiences have accepted their narratives and they hide, ignore and deny all realities that contradict it.

For millions of Americans, White and Trump really are perceived as God’s anointed truth-tellers and prophets. What must be understood is the reality they represent is a movement that is anti-democratic and deeply authoritarian.

A prophet without honor?

Obviously, it is hard not to become impatient at disquisitions on the absurdity of religious beliefs confidently delivered by people like White. It seems a curious delusion to believe some of the wild tales she spins, but millions of Americans treat her words as if they were gold falling from her mouth.

There is a sign of hopefulness, though, as White has not been universally embraced in her second stint as Trump’s faith adviser.

Conservative commentator Cal Thomas writes, “There is little evidence her ‘advice’ has had any effect on his personal behavior.” And, “Her seeming worship of President Trump far exceeds biblical norms, and her prosperity gospel, which is no gospel at all, fits the definition of heresy: ‘Opinion or doctrine at variance with the orthodox or accepted doctrine, especially of a church or religious system.’”

Fellow prophet Mark Taylor also is adamant in all-caps: “THE LORD GOD REBUKES YOU PAULA WHITE CAIN, THE ENTIRE SATANIC SPIRITUAL ADVISORY BOARD and ALL THE FALSE PROPHETS OF BAAL THIS DAY! REPENT! MR PRESIDENT DO NOT LET THESE FALSE PROPHETS LAY HANDS ON YOU SIR! THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT! IT’S A TRANSFER OF DEMONS AND DEMONIC INFLUENCE!”

The disagreement among the prophets suggests a possible break in the invincibility so far enjoyed by White and perhaps Trump.

Outside the world of self-anointed prophets, the real world of American religion doesn’t see White’s return to the White House as a promising portent.

Rachel Laser, president of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, offered a blunt assessment: “Televangelist Paula White was unfit to serve in the White House when Trump first appointed her in 2019 and she’s still unfit today — particularly in a position that could focus on combating discrimination and advancing religious freedom for all. White is a Christian nationalist powerbroker who’s spent much of her career operating in the shadows to influence public policies that discriminate against women, LGBTQ people and religious minorities, and the nomination of partisan judges who will support those harmful policies.”

 

Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.

 

Related articles:

Jack Graham prays over Trump at Paula White’s National Faith Summit

False prophets have hijacked the evangelical movement | Opinion by Rodney Kennedy

Matthew Taylor’s new book explores how ‘the fringe became the carpet’ | Analysis by Steve Rabey