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RECYCLED VID OF HIM BADLY READING THEN MISINTERP BIBLE ~ THE BISH BARBER?

RWW 5 26

[Christian Nationalism ## Much-Hyped ‘Rededication’ of U.S. to God Can’t Draw Trump Off the Golf Course

President Trump called for an event "rededicating" America to God, but he couldn't be bothered to show up for it.

https://www.peoplefor.org/rightwingwatch/much-hyped-rededication-us-god-cant-draw-trump-golf-course

05/18/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

*Commentary

Trump administration officials and Christian nationalist leaders hyped Sunday’s event to “rededicate America as one nation under God” as a historic moment and turning point for the nation, but President Donald Trump skipped it to go golfing.

The same was true for the Saturday evening worship gathering organized by musician and MAGA activist Sean Feucht on the grounds of the Washington Monument; while his followers gathered, Trump went golfing.

The snub was particularly noteworthy because Trump owes his election victories to the overwhelming support he got from conservative Christian voters, thanks in part to religious-right figures telling their audiences over and over again that Trump was anointed by God to lead and save America.

Religious-right figures who helped promote the event made a big deal out of the spiritual importance of Trump as president calling for the nation’s rededication to God. Dominionist anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ activist Lou Engle has organized many prayer events over the years that drew much bigger crowds, but he said that this one was special: “This solemn assembly is different than any other solemn assembly, for the president of the United States has called this day.”

But the president couldn’t even be bothered to make a video greeting for this “historic” moment like Vice President J.D. Vance did. Instead, organizers played a video of Trump reading a scripture passage from a religious-right organized Bible-reading marathon event a few weeks ago. Engle added that when Trump read that passage, “he opened a door for the greatest awakening America has ever seen.” He called it “a hinge of history moment.”

If Trump cared enough to think that a gathering of “prophetic” leaders might call him out the way Old Testament prophets called out unjust political leaders, he needn’t have worried. None of the speakers calling for personal and national repentance suggested that Trump should repent for his cruelty or corruption. As the Religion News Service noted, neither Sen. Tim Scott nor religious-right activist Alevda King, who spoke about the Black church’s central role in the Civil Rights Movement, mentioned the current MAGA assault on the Voting Rights Act.

Even White House Faith Office Director Paula White didn’t attend in person, sending a short video.

:{:{Ben Carson, who was secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the first Trump administration and is now National Advisor for Nutrition, Health, and Housing at the Department of Agriculture, did show up in person. He was one of a few speakers who talked about the need for national unity. There are “forces” that want Americans to think they are one another’s enemies, Carson said. “We are not enemies.” He did not acknowledge Trump’s central role in creating bitter divisions or his ongoing demonization of his political opponents as traitors—or for that matter his religious-right backers’ portrayal of Trump opponents as demonic.}:

And if the organizers of the event were really interested in promoting national unity, or transcending politics as House Speaker Mike Johnson claimed, they would have created an interfaith event that celebrated America’s exceptional religious liberty and religious pluralism. Instead they created an event overwhelmingly dominated by MAGA Christians.}:

MAGA pastor Franklin Graham delivered a video diatribe about the moral state of the country, quoting scriptural warnings about people being lovers of money, arrogant, abusive, heartless, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, and more. While Graham said this list could apply to America today, he ignored the obvious fact that all those traits apply to the president he unwaveringly promotes.

Samuel Rodriguez, a MAGA pastor, New Apostolic Reformation figure, and head of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, gave an opening prayer. He spoke for about four minutes, calling for love and justice but failing to utter a single word about the immigrants and other people in their communities who have been terrorized by the Trump administration’s brutal mass deportation efforts. So much for prophets speaking truth to power.

MAGA pundit Eric Metaxas used his time on the platform at the Sunday rally and the Saturday worship service to promote his new book about the American revolution.

At Feucht’s worship on Saturday, Metaxas claimed that every single one of the founding fathers understood that the national narrative of the revolution was, “We are re-establishing the Sinai covenant.” That kind of claim doesn’t bode well for the credibility of his book, but then, there wasn’tmuch hope for that anyway.

On Sunday, Metaxas said God’s hand had guided American leaders beginning with George Washington. After talking about the British burning the White House during the War of 1812, he added jokingly, “It’s hard to believe it that it would take two centuries for the Lord to raise up a great man to bring that ballroom finally to stand where it needs to stand. It’s extraordinary. We only had to wait 200 years.”

The actual “prayer of rededication” was delivered by Speaker Johnson, who invoked God’s support for the MAGA war on wokeness and truth-telling history:

In recent years we’ve seen sinister ideologies sow confusion and discord among our people. We’ve witnessed attacks on our history, on our heroes, and the cherished moral and spiritual identity of this nation. These forces insist to the young and impressionable that our story, the American story, is one of oppression and hypocrisy and failure, and that this story can only be understood through the lens of our sins. Father, we reject that. We rebuke it in your name. … We turn to you once again to save us from these afflictions, to deliver us from the forces of evil, oppression, injustice, and tyranny both within our borders and beyond our shores.

In asking for deliverance from oppression and injustice, Johnson was apparently not thinking of the authoritarian abuses of power that mark the Trump administration, because his only mention of Trump was to pray that God would “continue to bless our president with the wisdom, prudence, and strength to govern our nation in accordance with your will.”

Neither the smaller-than-expected attendance nor Trump’s apparent disinterest in the “rededication” ceremony mean that the rest of us should ignore that the increasingly aggressive Christian nationalism of the administration and the MAGA movement threatens Americans’ religious freedom and the rights of people seen as undeserving by right-wing Christian nationalists.

// RWW

05/18/2026

by

Kyle Mantyla

And the public may never know who their money was spent on.

Nine connected Polymarket accounts have raked in more than $2.4 million betting almost exclusively on U.S. military actions in what digital detectives from the data analytics firm Bubblemaps have identified as a potentially egregious case of insider trading.

Speakers cast America as ‘morally rotten’ and sinful while embracing the ‘Christian nationalist’ label.

President Donald Trump's free eight-hour Rededicate 250 prayer event held at the National Mall in D.C. Sunday drew a notably sparse crowd, with Reuters photos capturing numerous empty seats.

The ancestors of today’s Christian nationalists weren’t the leaders of Christian America — they were the heretics.

The Christian worship performance scheduled for the National Mall is a religious show.

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RWW 18TH?

Mike Johnson Says ‘Rededicate 250’ Event ‘Transcends Politics’; So Why Are All the Speakers MAGA Christians?

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson addressing the 2026 National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance (Image from CBN News coverage)

News & Analysis

05/15/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

A letter from Speaker of the House Mike Johnson promoting this weekend’s Christian nationalist ceremony to “rededicate” America to God was sent out by Freedom 250 Thursday evening.

In the email from Freedom 250, which President Donald Trump set up to wrest control of the national celebrations from the bipartisan and congressionally authorized America 250to promote himself and MAGA ideology, Johnson called Sunday’s day-long event “a unique moment for believers" and “a call for unity, repentance, and hope, and one that truly transcends politics.”

That is classic Trumpian gaslighting.

First of all, an event seeking to unify the actually country might in some way recognize the religious pluralism that is an essential part of what makes America exceptional, along with our Constitution’s protections of religious freedom and prohibitions on government-established religion or religious tests for public office.

Instead, every speaker listed in the schedule sent out by Freedom 250 is a Christian; most are evangelical and Pentecostal Trump boosters, along with a couple of right-wing Catholics and other denominations represented. Earlier speaker lists included a rabbi, perhaps as “Judeo-Christian” window-dressing, but he was not included in Thursday’s Freedom 250 email.

It’s a bad joke for Johnson to claim that Sunday’s event “transcends politics,” given that every speaker listed in the Freedom 250 email is a vocal supporter of President Trump, many of them on record declaring him to be anointed by God and some, like White House Faith Office Director Paula White, claiming that Trump’s opponents are enemies of God or demonic agents of Satan.

In reality, this is another opportunity for Trump to posture as a defender of the faith and bask in the adoration of his most loyal supporters at a time when his public support has hit record lows. And it is an opportunity for Christian nationalists to continue to send the false and exclusionary message that the only “real” Americans are the right kind of Christians, at a time when Christian-right and MAGA officials are trying to claim that Muslims and other non-Christians do not deserve the protection of the First Amendment.

The “moment of rededication” will be led by Johnson, along with former Archbishop of New York City Timothy Dolan, MAGA Pastor Lorenzo Sewell, and dominionist New Apostolic Reformation figure Lou Engle. Engle is a longtime anti-abortion and anti-LGBTQ activist who led prayers that God would knock off Supreme Court justices to create vacancies for Trump to fill. In an Engle teaching guide called “The Keys to Dominion,” he preached:

“The church’s vocation is to rule history with God…The same authority that has been given to Christ Jesus for overwhelming conquering and dominion has been given to the saints of the most high….We’re God’s rulers upon the earth…We will govern over kings and judges will have to submit…We’re called to rule! To change history! To be co-regents with God!”

Christians, secularists, and other Americans who reject the MAGA movement’s increasingly aggressiveChristian nationalism are speaking up in opposition to the “rededication.” This week, the Interfaith Alliance projected messages supporting religious freedom for all on the walls of the National Gallery of Art.

AN 4 26 GOOD FRDAY DJT - JC

'She's a heretic': Scarborough tears into Trump advisor's 'grotesque' comparison - Alternet.org

RWW

03/06/2026

by

Peter Montgomery

A week before President Donald Trump started a war against Iran, White House Faith Director Paula White was in Florida finishing up a conference where she portrayed Trump’s agenda as “God’s agenda.” Trump’s purpose, she said, is to “save America” and “restore it to its original condition.”

White criticized conservative Christians who are not as engaged as she wants them to be.

…I believe they love Jesus, but they’re not activated. And that’s why we are all suffering. Because if the church rises up and does what the church is supposed to do, then righteousness will rule and the Lord God will be Lord over the nation.

The theme of this year’s “Unleashed” conference was “It’s Worth Fighting For.” White urged the “enlisted warriors” in attendance to be the “remnant” that will fight relentlessly to fulfill God’s will, saying that the purpose of the gathering was to “commission” them. “I’m looking for who can get in a foxhole with me,” she said.

She compared critics of Christian nationalism and the New Apostolic Reformation to Goliath taunting the Israelites before he was defeated by David. “This generation will not be remembered by surrender,” she said. “It will be remembered by courage. It will be remembered by the fight we put up.

White has used the White House jobs Trump gave her in his first and second terms to promote Christian nationalist ideology and maintain conservative evangelicals’ sky-high support for the “anointed” Trump. At “Unleashed” she portrayed MAGA political wins as spiritual victories over the forces of darkness:

Faith subdued kingdoms. Faith took town wickedness in the Senate, the House. Faith took down wickedness in a DEI agenda. Faith took down wickedness and subdued kingdoms in our school boards and school systems. Faith subdued kingdoms of darkness that wanted to demonically control and possess our kids…

During a two-and-a-half hour performance that closed out the conference, White prayed for Trump and other “godly” politicians and against his political opponents:

Protect President Trump – his mind, his body, his physical being, his family, his office, everything that pertains to his purpose and destiny. Lord we pray for our leaders. We pray that they would be godly. Let the wicked either turn to you and get saved or let them get removed, in the name of Jesus.

White also promoted the religious revival that the Trump administration is hosting in partnership with dominionist leaders on the National Mall on May 17:

“Did I tell y’all that we’re rededicating this nation to God on May 17th? One nation under God. Come on. Did I tell you that we’re gonna have worship and we’re gonna preach the gospel and baptisms, come on, and communion.. Did I tell you that we’re rededicating this nation as one nation under God?

White also opened the Saturday session with some preaching, prophesying, and preaching about prophesying. This is how she introduced “Prophet” Gideon Danso:

Prophet Gideon, I stand in a spiritual and a natural position that by the spirit of God I call you in to prophesy, to activate the army of God that is a remnant church that will raise up in America and not let this land be taken by demonic forces and not let this land be taken by an ideology of Marxism or communism or any other ism that is not God’s will and God’s plan and God’s word.

Danso’s performance style is to take the audience on a roller-coaster ride from soft-spoken to screaming over and over again. Among the phrases he screamed repeatedly were “Let the army rise!” and “Where are the warriors?”

“We decree and declare that this nation is rescued,” Danso said.

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Nate Schatzline Claims Muslim Elected Officials Are Plotting To Subjugate Christians

11/04/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

Last week, Christian nationalist Texas state Rep. Nate Schatzline announced that he would not be seeking reelection and, instead, will be taking a position with National Faith Advisory Board "to equip pastors to step up and speak out about religious freedom."

IFrame Content

The National Faith Advisory Board was created by White House faith advisor Paula White and claims that its mission is to, among other things, "fight religious discrimination," which makes the decision to hire Schatzline somewhat questionable, given his views on Islam.

Two days after he announced his new position with the NFAB, Schatzline posted the latest episode of his "Wake Up Church" podcast, which was largely dedicated to declaring that Islam is "a death cult" and "is not compatible with Western society."

"One of the greatest threats to America's national security is the Islamification of the United States," Schatzline said, warning that "the Muslim false god of Allah commands Muslims to lie."

As such, Schatzline claimed that Muslim elected officials are engaged in a coordinated campaign of deception designed to take over the government and subjugate Christians.

"We have to apply it to the public policy positions of the elected Muslims that we see," he said. "When you look at a Muslim who is currently elected in the United States of America; Rep. Ilhan Omar is a great example—openly Muslim—and she will actively, actively vote for pro-abortion policies. However, she herself will never have an abortion, and the reason is because she's never going to kill a Muslim child, but she definitely wants Christians and infidels, Jews, to kill their children."

"We look at these Muslims that are elected to office," Schatzline continued, "and they will continuously advocate for social welfare programs that take away from the taxpayer and replace God with government and local church with government. And you wonder, 'Are you advocating for Muslims to take part in these programs?' Of course not. This is why their mosques and their Islamic communities take care of their communities. So what they're advocating for is not that Muslims would join social welfare programs; what they're advocating for is that Christians, Jews, infidels would join those social welfare programs and then in 50 to 100 years, maybe sooner, when Islam rules as the prime law of the land and we see things like the Ten Commandments and our biblical foundation thrown out the window, then Christians and Jews are in complete submission to the Muslims in power because they control our social welfare programs."

"People, it's not a conspiracy theory," Schatzline insisted. "I'm trying to expose the evil and the darkness that is surrounding this."

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rww

09/23/2025

by

Peter Montgomery

Donald Trump’s religious-right allies have not been shy about claiming that he was anointed by God to lead the United States. It’s been going on since Trump’s first presidential campaign and gained new intensity since Trump survived an assassination attempt last year. Trump has been happy to amplify his supporters’ claim that he was chosen—and saved—by God to carry out a divine mission as president.

Now Trump, a relentless fundraiser, has adopted a fundraising tactic employed by his spiritual and political adviser, White House aide Paula White. White is a proponent of the prosperity gospel, with a track record of promising supporters that they can obtain spiritual blessings by sending her money. Prosperity preachers call this “sowing a seed of faith,” and many Christians consider White and the prosperity gospel heretical.

But it seems to bring in the bucks, so it’s not entirely surprising that Trump has decided to borrow the rhetorical device. In an email sent to MAGA supporters today, Trump tells supporters, “I need you NOW” and urges them to send him money to defeat the “radical left” on which he has declared war:

And remember this – when you give, you are not just contributing to a political cause. You are sowing a SEED OF FAITH into the future of our Nation.

The Bible tells us faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains. And together, our faith will move America back to GOD. Back to TRUTH. Back to GREATNESS.

Trump’s email opens with the kind of rhetoric employed by religious-right operatives who portray those who disagree with them as enemies of God:

Since the day I returned to the White House, I have felt the mighty hand of God guiding this movement. His Word reminds us: “If God is for us, who can be against us?”*

The enemies of freedom thought they could break us with lies, with courts, with endless persecution – but they were WRONG.

The virtual merger between the evangelical right and the MAGA movement was on display at last weekend’s gathering in honor of the murdered MAGA activist Charlie Kirk, which was partly an evangelical worship service, partly a MAGA rally, and partly a call to war against “the left,” the “forces of evil,” and the movement’s enemies. While Kirk’s widow and successor as head of TPUSA Erika Kirk said she forgave his killer and talked about the Christian imperative to love one’s enemies, she was followed to the microphone by Trump who, in addition to his typical litany of grievances, directly contradicted her when he said he does not love his opponents but hates them, thus giving the event’s massive audience permission to ignore her call to Christian conscience and embrace his call to war.

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04/11/2025

by

Peter Montgomery

Intercessors for America, a group of ardently pro-Trump “prayer warriors” that is closely associated with White House aide Paula White, gathered a group of supporters in Washington, D.C. this week to “prayer walk the centers of power in our nation, pray with elected officials, and gather with other IFA intercessors.” It was the first of IFA’s new monthly “Insights and Intercession” events, designed to give supporters a chance to “strategically pray” in Washington, D.C.

The concept of “strategic” spiritual warfare is a key element of dominionist New Apostolic Reformation ideology. During the first Trump administration, White forged and maintained close relationships with Christian nationalist and dominionist leaders through her One Voice Prayer Movement and her alliance with groups like IFA. IFA President Dave Kubal has participated in national “prayer and repentance” gatherings attended by dozens of members of Congress.

Intercessors for America, like the National Faith Advisory Board White set up after Trump lost in 2020 and many Christian-right organizations and media outlets, functions as a virtual non-stop public relations operation for the Trump administration. Collectively, these activists relentlessly repeat assertions that Trump is anointed by God and that his opponents—whether Democrats or federal judges—are thwarting God’s will, thereby helping to maintain a cultish level of support among Trump’s base, which in turn empowers him to demand unquestioning loyalty from fellow Republicans.

IFA has celebrated Trump’s campaign of intimidation and retribution against law firms, laughably characterizing it as an effort to “bring an end to the politicization of justice once and for all.” It has produced a "special report" titled "Power Struggle: Trump vs. Activist Judges," which calls out judges who are "taking on the president." The subject line of a recent email read, “God is Protecting DOGE!”

On Thursday, IFA posted a photo of its prayer warriors praying through the halls of the Supreme Court. On Wednesday, IFA shared a picture of its members meeting with Rep. Nathaniel Moran, who IFA quoted saying, “We’re engaged in a spiritual battle here.” White also invited IFA’s intercessors to the White House for a private briefing.

IFA had been at the White House a week earlier as well, for an event sponsored by the White House Faith Office during IFA’s “supporters summit,” which bore the name of Dave Kubal’s forthcoming book, “Impacting Generations.” According to IFA’s Facebook page, Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Markwayne Mullin met with IFA supporters.

Among IFA’s activities are weekly prayer calls hosted by Kris Kubal, Dave’s wife and IFA’s Chief Program Office. For two weeks in a row in March, Kubal devoted her show to promoting the Trump administration’s claims that federal judges who are acting to slow or stop the administration’s lawbreaking are a “judicial oligarchy” exercising a form of “despotism.”

As Right Wing Watch reported in March, the guest speaker on March 20 was Phillip Jauregui, a longtime right-wing activist who heads the Judicial Action Group and promotes a wildly unconstitutional religious test for Supreme Court justices and other federal judges through the Center for Judicial Renewal, a project of the American Family Association’s political action affiliate. On the IFA call, Jauregui prayed that God would visit the Supreme Court justices in their dreams to bring them “into alignment with your will to preserve the proper powers of the presidency right now.”

Among the concrete steps Jauregui suggested was a little budgetary intimidation designed to force the Supreme Court to rein in lower courts judges. Jauregui asked, “What if Speaker Johnson put something out publicly and says, ‘Chief Justice Roberts, we’d like to talk with you about having Elon Musk and DOGE come look at judicial expenditures.’ Hello? You think that would spook Roberts a bit, and cause him to be concerned?”

The following week, Kris Kubal hosted right-wing activist Bill Federer, who floated conspiracy theories about John Roberts being compromised and blackmailed by some embarrassing information to explain why he hasn’t ruled in lockstep with Trump. Federer also suggested actions Congress could take to “uncreate” lower courts or strip them of jurisdiction. An IFA leader from Florida prayed that God would turn the hearts of judges or "remove" them, an echo of previousspiritual warriors' callsfor God to "remove" Supreme Court justices to give Trump more vacancies to fill.

Back in 2018, when Trump was close to choosing Brett Kavanaugh as his second Supreme Court nominee, Jauregui used an IFA prayer call to denounce Kavanaugh as a “usurper” and insist that Amy Coney Barrett was the one anointed by God. But a week later, after Trump had officially nominated Kavanaugh, IFA fell in line and mobilized support for his confirmation.

IFA is also active at the state level. The same IFA newsletter celebrating the group’s return to the White House also linked to an article about efforts by IFA leaders in South Carolina to decree a “divorce from Baal” and its “prayer and pronouncing separation from the roots of the Masonic for the State.”

RWW VIDEO

02/24/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

Pastor Paula White, director of the White House Faith Office, is "challenging you" to give her money so that God can bless you. You can give her "a sacrificial offering" of $133, $52, or $414.

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rww

02/07/2025

by

Kyle Mantyla

* Finally, "prophet" Mark Taylor is not happy that Paula White has been tapped to run the White House Faith Office: "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!"

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AN 2 25

When President Donald Trump spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday morning, February 6, he attacked Democrats as anti-religion — claiming, "They oppose religion, they oppose God." Trump vowed to put a stop to attacks on Christianity, which he claims is facing an "anti-Christian bias."

In fact, former President Joe Biden and ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) are known for being devout Catholics. And Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia) is a Baptist minister.

Trump announced the creation of a Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty. And the evangelical Rev. Paula White, Trump's longtime spiritual adviser, will head the new White House Faith Office.

READ MORE:'Impossible to rely on tariffs': GOP strategist reveals why Trump is 'wrong in important ways'

MSNBC's Steve Benen examines White's history in a February 7 column, noting her role in Trump's "Stop the Steal" efforts after the 2020 election and her promotion of a controversial doctrine known as "the prosperity gospel."

The "prosperity gospel" claims that God rewards the faithful with material gains, but opponents of the doctrine consider it unbiblical — as parts of the Bible are highly critical of materialism. For example, Luke 18:25 in the New Testament quotes Jesus as saying, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." And that concept is repeated in Matthew 19:24 as well as in the Koran (the holy book of Islam).

Benen notes, "In 2019, for example, White told her viewers that they had to support her ministry, even if they're struggling, or God would kill their dreams. The same week, White told viewers that some states have 'already passed' laws declaring the Christian Bible as 'hate speech,' which is why America needs Trump's judicial nominees to be confirmed. There are no such state laws."

In 2020, the MSNBC columnist recalls, White claimed that opposition to Trump's campaign was "demonic." And after he lost the election to Democrat Joe Biden, she held prayer services to keep Trump in the White House and insisted that "demonic confederacies" were trying to steal the election.

READ MORE:Right-wing writer who called drag queens groomers arrested for child molestation

White was among the speakers at Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally on January 6, 2021, telling attendees that "every adversary" would "be overturned right now in the name of Jesus."

Benen observes, "It's not altogether clear what White's responsibilities will be leading the White House Faith Office, or whether she intends to accept a taxpayer-funded salary."

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no lnx vids

Paula White Is Back In The White House

02/06/2025

by Kyle Mantyla

President Donald Trump spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast this morning, where he announced that his longtime faith adviser Paula White will be heading up White House Faith Office, just as she did during his first term in office, when she treated her position like an unofficial arm of his reelection campaign.

As such, we thought it appropriate to remind everyone of just who Paula White is.

In the wake of Trump's loss in the 2020 election, White held multiple emergency prayer services to battle the "demonic confederacies" that were supposedly trying to steal the election.

When that didn't work, White joined Trump at the Jan. 6 rally that preceded the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, where she prayed that God would give rallygoers a “holy boldness” and that “every adversary” would “be overturned right now in the name of Jesus.” She said of Trump, “I secure his purpose. I secure his destiny.”

White has repeatedly declared that her mere presence in the White House makes it "holy ground" and warned that to oppose Trump is to oppose God.

Video URL

She has declared that Black Lives Matter is an anti-Christ terrorist organization.

She has preached against marriage equality and reproductive choice.

She has promised her congregation that God will reward them for giving her money, even going so far as telling them to forsake paying their bills in order to donate to her church.

In 2020, White claimed to have ascended to Heaven, where she met God and he "put a mantle" on her.

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RWW

01/17/2025

by

Peter Montgomery

The America First Policy Institute, a MAGA movement think tank founded by former Trump aides, has raised millions in tax-exempt funds to promote policies that would undermine public education, restrict access to abortion, limit voter registration and voting, roll back environmental protections, gut government’s ability to regulate corporate behavior, pursue campaigns against transgender people, and more.

AFPI has provided money, an institutional home, and political platforms to many of the people Trump has nominated to run the country; **quite a few high-level Trump nominees have AFPI connections, including:

Trump’s first public speech after winning the 2024 election was at an AFPI gala at Mar-a-Lago, where he was joined by other MAGA luminaries, including HHS nominee Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and “Department of Government Efficiency” leaders Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

AFPI founder Rollins has bragged about the group’s “revolutionary” plans to seize control of the “administrative state.” The group’s agenda for the incoming administration—its “transition project”—is in some ways even more radical than the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. AFPI believes Trump should be allowed to fire and replace any federal employee at will – potentially converting the entire federal workforce into a massive and corrupt political patronage system. AFPI has reportedly prepared 300 executive orders for Trump.

As an officer at the America First Policy Institute, Bondi tried to undermine special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of Trump by arguing that his appointment was unconstitutional. She oversaw what the Brennan Center has called “a number of troubling voting rights and election lawsuits,” leading the pro-democracy organization to conclude, “Her record on voting and elections raises questions about her ability to be the attorney general the American public deserves.”

In a case in which AFPI sought to empower local election officials to delay or block certification of elections, AFPI’s arguments were “meritless and radical,” according to the Brennan Center. In another case filed shortly before, even notorious pro-Trump Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk rejected AFPI’s “emergency” request to block a Biden executive order on voter registration that had been in place for several years. Kacsmaryk wrote that AFPI’s request provided “no direct evidence” to support its claims. The Brennan Center noted that the lawsuit “served to amplify baseless conspiracy theories about noncitizen voting.”

AFPI is funded in part by Tim Dunn, who the Texas Monthly has called “the billionaire bully who wants to turn Texas into a Christian theocracy.” Dunn is notorious for funding smear campaigns against Texas Republicans who don’t fall in line with his demands. Dunn poured millions of dollars into the effort to elect Trump to a second term, and supports other right-wing causes, like the Convention of States’ efforts to rewrite the U.S. Constitution. In a 2019 speech to Convention of States, Dunn argued that the Bible is “mainly about politics” and said that COS is triggering a Great Awakening.

Not so surprisingly, AFPI promotes Christian nationalist rhetoric; AFPI leaders have described their efforts as part of a “spiritual war.” AFPI’s political arm, which is chaired by Dunn, partnered with dominionist Lance Wallnau—who believes right-wing Christians are meant to control the government and every other sphere of influence in society--to help Trump return to power. Dunn himself reportedly told former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, who is Jewish, that only Christians should be in leadership positions in the legislature.

Also in leadership at AFPI is Trump spiritual and political adviser Paula White, who has repeatedly called Trump’s opponents demonic and kicked off his pre-insurrection rally with a prayer for “holy boldness.” White chairs AFPI’s Center for American Values.

AFPI’s faith director Richard Rogers, who took part in Wallnau’s “Courage Tour,” appeared on The Jim Bakker show this week, where he said there will be a “faith director” in every government agency in the new administration. He predicted that the “prayer warriors” who “rose up” on Trump’s behalf in 2024 will “have more power than Elon Musk.” He described AFPI as a “data-driven machine” that worked “hand-in-hand” with the RNC to boost turnout among low-propensity voters.

AFPI claims “biblical foundations” for each of the ten “pillars” of its right-wing policy agenda, which it calls “10 Pillars for Restoring a Nation Under God.” It asserts, “The Ten Commandments and Christian teachings have been the foundation that created the American legal system.” AFPI’s website declares, “This fight is not just about the culture of America; it’s about the kingdom of God and the Church’s divine mission to be the salt and light of our day in an era of increasing darkness.”

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https://www.alternet.org/2021/02/christian-nationalism/

ME

The insurrection on the U.S. Capitol may have been influenced by former President Donald Trump's dangerous rhetoric but the history of Christian nationalism likely paved the way for the deadly unrest that erupted on Jan. 6, according to Talking Points Memo.

A new op-ed written by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove — a known spiritual writer, Duke Divinity School graduate, and evangelical Christian. —highlights the distinctive presence of Christian symbolism at the Trump rally.

From Pastor Paula White's opening prayer at the disgraced former president's "Save America" rally and rioters' victory prayer inside the Senate chamber after invading the Capitol, to the "Jesus 2020" banner that soared outside the U.S. Capitol, symbols of distorted Christianity were visible in Washington, D.C., although many were not televised.

Wilson-Hartgrove noted, "the presence of Christians and Christian symbolism at the Capitol riot was so pronounced that several pro-Trump pastors felt compelled to make public statements condemning the violence in the days that followed." However, the problem appears to be far deeper than one religious leaders can condemn.

In a recent report about the extensive planning leading up to the insurrection, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) also noted that many different extremist groups appeared to be organized and under the direction of many different leaders all gathered in the name of "saving America."

For decades now, right-wing conservatives have used Christianity to justify many facets of extremism, barbarism, and the many lies perpetrated to support the existence of Christian nationalism. Jan. 6 proved to be a pivotal example of how Christianity has influenced the rise of right-wing extremism:

"Nothing in recent history has exposed the lies of Christian nationalism more clearly than a riot at the U.S. Capitol, waged in the Christian God's name. We cannot pretend that what we witnessed on Jan. 6 was a strange departure from the normal practice of Christian nationalist organizations. It was a harvest of the narrative they have sown for the past four decades."

In order to move in a direction that would lead to a resolution for this widespread problem, Wilson-Hartgrove notes that "facing the truth of Christian nationalists' complicity" could be the first step in the right direction.

Wilson-Hartgrove concluded, "But facing the truth of Christian nationalists' complicity in the Capitol riot may help other Christians see what Rev. Barber taught me so many years ago: that there is a way for Christian people of faith to work with their secular and non-Christian neighbors to reclaim a moral narrative that can push the country toward a more perfect union."

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/11/trumps-spiritual-advisor-had-a-frantic-election-meltdown-the-internet-responded-with-these-hilarious-remixes/

President Donald Trump's "spiritual adviser" went off in an election-related meltdown that was supposed to resemble a sermon. In it, Paula White ranted that international people should come to the United States to somehow stop the votes from being tallied. That would technically mean a declaration of war.

She was generally ridiculed for the context and her demand for help from a different continent.

"Angels have been dispatched from Africa!" shouted White. It was something fact-checked by many on Twitter since Trump referred to those countries as "sh*thole nations."

Beyond the replies and fact-checks about an international overthrow of the United States, however, there a series of videos where White was remixed with hilarious outcomes.

You can see some of them below:

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/religious-right-pre-election-push-calls-democrats-demonic-warns-against-muslims-secularists/

religious-right groups are making a last-minute push to turn out conservative evangelical voters for Donald Trump by sharing a Virginia pastor’s sermon that denounces theDemocratic Party as evil and demonic and warns evangelical Christians that if they don’t get more involved in politics, they will allow Muslims and secular humanists to shape the country.

In the sermon video, Pastor Gary Hamrick of Cornerstone Chapel in Leesburg, Virginia, calls the election a “spiritual war” and says politicians who are “advancing a godless agenda” are “pawns of darkness.” Hamrick was one of the religious-right leaders who attended President Donald Trump’s speech at the White House in August accepting the Republican nomination for president.

Hamrick’s sermon is being promoted by White House aide Paula White’s Once Voice Prayer Movement, a political outreach project of the Trump White House in the guise of an online prayer group. One Voice Prayer Movement promotes dominionist leaders and Christian nationalist rhetoric, and White, herself, has a habit of portraying Trump’s political opponents as demonic.

Unlike most OVPM “prayer alerts”—in effect press releases promoting Trump and his administration—the promotion of Hamrick’s sermon didn’t bother to couch it as a “prayer request” or “prayer need” by the White House. The video was simply sent with a note praising its “boldness and clarity” and urging people to share it.

Closely aligned with One Voice Prayer Movement is Intercessors for America, a group of pro-Trump “prayer warriors” whose leader Dave Kubal helps run OVPM. IFA, whose monthly prayer calls regularly feature right-wing politicians, is also actively promoting Hamrick’s sermon with a five-day “sharing campaign” that began Saturday. IFA is sending its intercessors daily emails encouraging them to share selected clips from Hamrick’s sermon along with a link to copy of the full sermon published on IFA’s YouTube channel.

Hamrick’s sermon began with a dramatic build-up to those sitting in the pews as he delivered it. He said that some people might become so angry that they would leave the church. And he claimed that local law enforcement and state troopers were “stationed throughout the congregation” to enforce Virginia law against disrupting a religious service.

He told congregants that he is not angry with them personally, adding:

But I am angry with the spiritual forces of evil that have hijacked the hearts and minds of people in an effort to try to capture the soul of America. And I’m angry with demonic principalities, and by extension demonic principles that have influenced millennials, Gen Xers, and Gen Zers with godless philosophies and the doctrines of men. I am angry with politicians who are either knowingly or unknowingly pawns of darkness, instead of agents of light, who are advancing a godless agenda that is destructive to our country. And thus, I cannot be silent, I will not be silent and neither should you. America needs to wake up, and it starts with the church of Jesus Christ.

We need to wake up, Christian. We, we need to wake up, Christian.This is a battle. This is a war. This is not a game. It’s a spiritual battle that we are facing for the heart and soul of America and for the heart and soul of the next generation.

Hamrick grounded his sermon in the biblical book of Jeremiah, a prophet who warned of God’s wrath on nations that reject his law. He said the U.S. is at a crossroads, adding that if the body of Christ would get its collective act together and honor God “in this election cycle,” then perhaps God will have mercy on the country.

Hamrick rejected the “pushback” against what he calls his Election Day sermons from people who think pastors should keep politics out of the pulpit. Channeling religious-right pseudo-historian David Barton,Hamrick offered a presentation on pastors “leading the charge” in the Revolutionary War and at other moments in history. And he had a question for his congregants:

Okay, so let me ask you a question. Don’t you think that Rep. Ilhan Omar integrates her faith and politics? Don’t you think that Rashida Tlaib integrates her faith and politics? You better believe it. In fact, for those of you who are not aware, Joe Biden has already publicly declared that he will be adding Muslims to his administration. Listen to him yourself.

Hamrick showed a video that included Joe Biden speaking to Muslims and clips from a civic participation campaign encouraging American Muslims to vote. Hamrick claimed he was not sharing the video to disparage Muslim Americans, who also have freedom to worship in the U.S. But, he added:

Well, what I am saying is that if as Christians, somehow you believe the lie that faith and politics don’t mix, that pastors should stay out of that—it’s just too divisive—then by your apathy and your reluctance, you are actually helping to advance the doctrine and dogma of other world religions and of secular humanism, to influence this nation, rather than the values and virtues of Christianity. That’s what’s happening. Wake up! They’re not asleep. They’re not asleep. Why are Christians asleep today when it comes to this? Now, the fact is that only in recent times, have pastors kowtowed to political correctness, and remained silent or indifferent about faith and politics.

Hamrick read from a prayer guide distributed by Intercessors for America that contrasts positions in the Republican and Democratic Party platforms. He highlighted the Democratic Party’s—and the Biden-Harris ticket’s—support for LGBTQ equality. He said the Democratic platform’s call for “shared prosperity” is “political speak” for socialism. He praised Trump as the “most pro-life” and “most pro-Israeli” president the U.S. has ever had. He played a short video clip from a Trump speech in which Trump said “you still need help from the boss”—meaning God—and joked that he’s not the most famous person in the world because Jesus Christ is.

Hamrick told the Democrats in his congregation that theirs is no longer the party of FDR, JFK, or even Bill Clinton.

Listen to me, I’m going to speak truth to you. If you are a lifelong Democrat, your party has left you. Your party has left you. That ship has sailed. It’s true. I used to believe that the two-party system in America was much like a husband and a wife in a marriage, just differences. Just, you know, different people with different approaches and different perspectives but who shared a common goal and vision in life. And so, therefore, you could learn from each other’s different perspective, and you would balance each other out. I don’t believe that anymore. I believe that there is a liberal progressive agenda influenced by spiritual forces of evil, that if allowed to progress will be the demise of America. I believe it with all my heart. And while people are sitting around, foolishly talking about how they don’t like Trump’s tweets and his unfiltered style and his checkered past, meanwhile, the enemy is roaming around like a roaring lion looking for a nation to devour.

I know Trump is not going to win Miss Congeniality. Get over it! It’s not about personality. It’s about guardians of what is true and what is right in our day. That’s what we need to be concerned about.

Donald Trump is not our savior. Joe Biden is not our savior. Jesus Christ is our savior, and because he is my Savior, as for me in my house, I cannot, I will not vote for a candidate whose party platform advocates the murder of unborn babies, embraces same-sex marriage, encourages transgender behavior, and ignores God and his word in our culture.

I cannot. I will not. Cannot. Will not. Amen.

Listen, if you in good conscience cannot vote for Donald Trump, then don’t. But I don’t know how in good conscience a Christian can vote for an agenda that is evil.

Hamrick called a church that is “silent about the moral issues of our day “complicit in the evil,” like Christians in Nazi Germany that did not resist the regime’s persecution of Jews.

Hamrick’s sermon was posted on YouTube Oct. 18. As of Monday morning Oct. 26, it had nearly 140,000 views; a copy of the video posted by Intercessors for America had another 25,000 views.

Tags: Dave Kubal Gary Hamrick Paula White Intercessors for America One Voice Prayer Movement

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superspreaders who beleive in small gov't take covis bailout $?!

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/trumps-religious-right-backers-get-millions-in-covid%e2%80%8b-19-relief/

Conservative evangelical churches and advocacy groups led by vocal boosters of President Donald Trump have received millions of dollars in coronavirus relief funds, marking a new milestone in the religious​ right’s long campaign to take a wrecking ball to the wall separating church and state.

The Paycheck Protection Program included in coronavirus relief legislation was designed to help small businesses and other organizations stay afloat and keep people working during the pandemic. Religious-right leaders worked with​ ​their allies in Congress and the ​Trump administration to make sure that churches would be able to receive direct government funding to support clergy salaries and other operational expenses. The program is administered by the Small Business Administration, which waived normal requirements that participants in its loan program abide by nondiscrimination standards.

On June 22, the SBA hosted a “Recovery & Resilience for Faith Based Communities tele-townhall” for leaders of churches and religious nonprofits to urge them to participate in the program by applying before the June 30 deadline—and to lavish praise on Trump for supporting the program. The call was promoted by the White House and religious-right figures like Gary Bauer.

Paula White, who oversees the Trump administration’s faith-based outreach from her perch at the White House, began the call by praying for the president. “Put a hedge and wall of fire around him that no weapon formed against him would be able to prosper,” White prayed.

White praised Trump and his administration’s extensively, saying​, “it has always been his heart to make sure that houses of worship and people of faith have been protected.” She continued:

You heard that from way back, he was saying, ‘We’re going to put Merry back in Christmas,’ or talking about the Johnson Amendment. But he’s done so much to accomplish that. Things with religious freedom, like removing restrictions on grants. The PPP is one way that we begin to see this. There are so many others, but there are departments everywhere that have grants, and for years and decades, they’ve had restrictions that people of faith have had very, very difficult time. Well, our president made sure to remove those restrictions on grants, ensuring faith-based has equal access to capital, equal access to grant money.

White’s own City of Destiny church got between $150,000 and $350,000 in PPP funds, according to SBA records​.

To overcome the skepticism some conservative Christian leaders might have about getting directly involved with the federal government, officials invited several prominent religious-right leaders to praise the program. While PPP funds could be a lifeline to smaller congregations and nonprofits, it turns out that staying afloat has not been a problem for some megachurches that had online worship and fundraising abilities​. Instead, some of those megachurches have used money freed up by paycheck protection to expand their influence in their local communities.​

Jentezen Franklin, a member of Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board, is pastor of the multi-campus Free Chapel megachurch, based in Gainesville, Georgia. Franklin was effusive on the SBA call​, marveling that his church received a “tremendous amount of money” within three weeks of applying for it. Data released by the SBA Monday make it clearer how “tremendous” that amount was—in the $1​ million to $2 million range. With payroll covered by government funds and the ability to “catch up online,” Franklin said his church distributed $340,000 to small churches in his community.

Franklin has urged evangelicals to help reelect Trump or​ be prepared to face tragic consequences. Trump publicly announced that he was watching Franklin’s worship service on March 15, which Trump had declared a national day of prayer.

Samuel Rodriguez, a pastor who prayed at Trump’s inauguration and president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, said PPP money​ was “like manna in the desert of this pandemic.” Rodiguez said the church was “made for this hour,” adding that “for this administration to recognize the church and the faith community as essential is a game​ changer.”

Rodriguez’s New Season ​Church in Sacramento​, California, received between $150,000 and $350,000. He said the money has helped his own church not just survive but help other churches and expand community outreach. Rodriguez, who recently denounced the Democratic Party as “hostile to our Christian worldview,” ​called the program a “powerful resource” and a “blessing.”

“This is Uncle Sam helping us do the will of our heavenly father,” Rodriguez said. “So the PPP enabled us to cover payroll for our staff that is right now praying for interceding for the needs of our community, not just physical, spiritual, but in mental and emotional needs, literally saving lives.”

Also on the SBA call was another member of Trump’s evangelical advisory board, James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and longtime opponent of reproductive choice and LGBTQ equality. Dobson said that his organization, the James Dobson Family Institute, “has literally been kept solvent this spring and summer by the Paycheck Protection Plan.” Dobson said that thanks to the money his organization had received, ​adding, “We have not asked for a cent from anybody in six months.”

Other Trump-supporting leaders and organizations have done quite well. Here’s a sampling, drawn from our own research and other reporting on the SBA records:

Initially, the idea of tax dollars directly supporting clergy and church operations was defended as an extraordinary response to the unique situation caused by the pandemic. But on a phone call organized by Paul​a White’s One Voice Prayer Movement in May,former Rep. Randy Forbes ​of Virginia, founder of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, celebrated ​that​ “precedents for religious freedom” that ​are​ being set during the pandemic—specifically the unprecedented use of federal tax dollars to directly fund clergy and churches—“are going to endure long after this coronavirus has gone.”

Marcus Harris, director of faith and community initiatives in the office of Entrepreneurial Development at the SBA, told people in the call, “One thing I’m able to say in my role as the faith-based leader here at SBA is that I know for many of you this is your first interaction with SBA, but we do not want this to be your last,” a sentiment that was repeated by SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza.

Tags: Donald TrumpJames DobsonJentezen FranklinJim BakkerPaula WhiteRick JoynerRobert JeffressSamuel RodriguezChurch-StateCoronavirusElection 2020Trump AdministrationAmerican Center for Law and JusticeFirst Baptist Church DallasLiberty CounselTrump Administration

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/paula-whites-one-voice-prayer-movement-a-thinly-disguised-political-operation-for-trump/

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220 rww

White Claims to Have Gone to the Throne Room of Heaven Where She Saw the Face of God

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220 mojo

How Do You Get From the Trailer Park to a White House Job? Give Money to Trump’s Spiritual Adviser.

Paula White urges her followers to pay her instead of their bills.

STEPHANIE MENCIMER   FEBRUARY 17, 2020

On a Friday morning in February, televangelist Paula White-Cain spent more than two hours preaching at the King Jesus church Supernatural Ministry School in Miami. With top billing on the event website as “Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser,” White stood in front of a stage with a light show befitting a Pink Floyd cover band. With a sanctuary that holds 7,000 people, one of the nation’s largest Latino churches was packed with “apostles” and “prophets” who’d come to be “activated in God’s supernatural power” and learn to expand their ministry.

“They called me trailer trash,” White said, as an interpreter in a blue track suit jacket translated her words into Spanish. “But our God’s in the recycling business.” With her husband, the keyboardist for Journey, providing a stirring backtrack, White testified about her own rags-to-riches tale, starting with her humble roots in Tupelo, Mississippi, her father’s suicide, her out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy, her years working her way up from janitor to Sunday school teacher at a Maryland church.

“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 said, recalling 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 that God told me to show him who He was would become the president of the United States of America,” she told the crowd, which cheered with enthusiasm.

“God kept opening doors until eventually, 19 years ago, I get a phone call out of the blue, from this man named Donald Trump.”

As one of the only women in the male-dominated world of TV preachers, White long ago reached evangelical celebrity status, publishing nearly a dozen books, launching a successful TV show, and ministering to everyone from the late Michael Jackson to the New York Yankees. But she has now accomplished something no other televangelist has ever achieved: a job in the White House. Since the end of October, she has served as the adviser to the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which Trump created through an executive order in 2018, as part of the White House Office of Public Liaison. As such, her official duties entail consulting with the faith community on such social issues as poverty and crime prevention and making recommendations to the White House Domestic Policy Council.

But just because she’s working in the White House doesn’t mean White has quit her day jobs. To the contrary, since her appointment, White has continued to preach at her own Florida megachurch. She’s promoted a new book, Something Greater: Finding Triumph Over Trials. Her TV show “Paula Today” airs five days a week, and she makes numerous public speaking appearances, many of which involve asking people for as much money as they can possibly spare—often even more.

The melding of White’s public and private jobs is nearly seamless, as she invokes her relationship with Trump in her sermons and fundraising pitches, even as she wields her spiritual authority to defend the president. But experts say the arrangement raises significant conflict of interest questions, concerns about her compliance with tax laws banning nonprofit churches from endorsing candidates. And there’s the more fundamental question as to whether by installing her in a White House job, Trump has put the government’s stamp of approval on a religious ministry that includes faith healing and preying on vulnerable people for money.

“If she is formally working on the White House staff and continuing to raise money and do other activities for her church, she creates the appearance of using her public position for personal gain,” says Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a nonprofit government watchdog group, noting that it’s a common theme in the Trump administration, which isn’t likely to object. “If the president believes in using public office for private gain, who is he or anyone in this administration to hold people accountable for doing it? When it comes to proper conduct by executive branch officials, the Trump presidency is a lawless one.”

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham says that White’s non-government work is all above board. She is a part-time “special government employee,” a classification that allows her to continue her outside employment while working for the White House, Grisham says, noting that White is not taking a salary and that she’s gone through “initial ethics training.” She has also filed a confidential financial disclosure form. “She works closely with [the White House Counsel’s Office] to ensure compliance with all government ethics rules related to her outside positions,” Grisham said in an email. White did not respond to questions for this story submitted to her publicist or through her ministry website.

Robert Weissman, president of the nonprofit good-government group Public Citizen, says that White’s position is reminiscent of the arrangement that billionaire corporate raider Carl Icahn had in 2017, when Trump appointed him as a presidential adviser on regulatory reform despite huge conflicts of interest from his oil business,which he continued to run during his brief stint in the White House. (Icahn was forced to leave the post because of the conflicts.) But White’s conflicts are even murkier.

“If she were purely a businessperson like Carl Icahn, you can identify the financial conflicts of interest. If she were a person from a purely advocacy point of view, you could object to the ideology, but as an ethics matter, there would really be nothing wrong,” Weissman says. “For her, religion is a business, so you worry about how she’s trying to leverage the official White House position to advance her business interests and how her business interests might influence what she does in the White House.”

At the Supernatural Ministry School, White deftly offered the audience the secret of her success. “How did I get to the White House from the trailer?” she asked. The answer, of course, was by giving money to God by way of the church—and she’s not talking about tossing the weekly pin money in the offering plate. Securing Paula White, White House-caliber blessings would require students of the supernatural to give a “First Fruits” offering, one that is significant—the first week’s pay, say, or even the first month’s pay—to signify putting God first in everything. White claimed during the sermon that God once told her that in 2009, a particularly bad year, she needed to give her entire annual salary to God—$8 million.

She broke it all down for her congregants, making it simple: If they prioritize their paychecks for more earthly needs, like keeping the lights on, they were treating Florida Power and Light (FPL) like God himself. “Instead of writing [that check] to the house of God as I’m instructed to, then what I’m saying spiritually is, ‘FPL, I have now established a spiritual law that put you first. So, FPL, save my family, FPL, deliver my drug addicted son. FPL, kill this cancer that doctors say is in my body.’”

Paula White, advisor to the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative, preaches at Supernatural Ministry School.]

Over the next half hour, White built to a crescendo, shed many tears, spoke in tongues, and implored people to give. Hundreds of people streamed down the aisles to throw envelopes of money at her feet. “The First Fruits sets the pattern and establishes the destiny for what is left,” she cried. “Many of you need to bring a First Fruit offering right now!” Mostly Latino apostles and prophets from the church brought baskets to the front to collect the offerings. No one from King Jesus responded to questions from Mother Jones about where the donations went.

“The First Fruits sets the pattern and establishes the destiny for what is left. Many of you need to bring a First Fruit offering right now!”

White is not part of any religious denomination. She’s often linked to the New Apostolic Reformation, a loose association of charismatic and Pentecostal churches that, like King Jesus, focus on the supernatural and anoint their own prophets and apostles. But White is better known as a purveyor of the prosperity gospel, a Christian theology that says faith and donations will bring health and wealth. Prosperity preachers like White are a special breed of evangelical Christians, and they are not the majority.

Many more mainstream evangelical leaders believe White’s ministry, with its explicit form of spiritual extortion, is not just distasteful but heretical.“Paula White is a charlatan and recognized as a heretic by every orthodox Christian, of whatever tribe,” tweeted the prominent evangelical preacher Russell Moore, the president of the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, back in 2016 during the presidential campaign. Yet her blend of intimate self-help and focus on material success as evidence of God’s blessings, struck a chord with Trump long ago.

They have a lot in common. Like the president, White is twice-divorced, with a history of marital infidelities and bankruptcy, but possessing remarkable TV savvy. They first connected in that fateful 2002 phone call, not long after White had launched her first TV show and her career was taking off. Trump called to tell White he’d been watching her show at Mar-a-Lago and that she was “fantastic.” Thus began a long relationship that included White gifting him a Bible for his 60th birthday in 2006 that was signed by the late, legendary minister Billy Graham. That same year, he appeared on her TV show to promote his latest book, Why We Want You to Be Rich. The year before, White bought a $3.5 million condo in Trump’s Park Avenue building. When Trump first considered a presidential run in 2011, he sought White’s counsel. “I don’t think it’s the right timing,” she told him.

The timing was obviously right in 2015, when Trump did decide to run for president. In Something Greater, she writes that he asked her to be a bridge to the evangelical community, a critical voting bloc that was far from being supportive of his candidacy. His perceived moral failings—the many wives, the notorious womanizing, his unapologetic vulgarity—all added up to the support of only 3 percent of evangelical leaders and “insiders” surveyed by WORLD magazine in July that year. When Trump appeared in 2015 at the big Christian Right confab in DC, the Values Voter Summit, he got booed.

White describes how she helped improve his standing by creating an evangelical advisory council for the campaign, made up mostly of other televangelists like her, including Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, and Robert Jeffress,the controversial Dallas megachurch pastor who in 2012, told evangelicals not to vote for Mitt Romney because, as a Mormon, Romney wasn’t a real Christian. White says she even schooled Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—an Orthodox Jew whom she describes as “quite brilliant”—on the “evangelical landscape.”

Later, when Trump appeared headed toward the GOP nomination, White helped organize a meeting for him with more mainstream evangelical leaders who still had many reservations about his moral character, not to mention concerns about the televangelists he had assembled who were not their natural compatriots. Most of them fell into line, and after Trump became the GOP nominee, White was on hand to give the prime-time benediction on the opening night of the Republican National Convention. After he was elected with the support of more than 80 percent of white evangelical voters, White gave the invocation at his inauguration, becoming the first clergywoman to do so, though not the first televangelist.

Since Trump’s election, White has helped ensure a steady stream of fringe evangelicals and prosperity preachers into the White House. But it’s not clear what exactly she’s been doing to fulfill her governmental duties since her October appointment to the faith initiative. In early December, she convened about 50 evangelicals at the White House for a special briefing that included appearances from Ivanka Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and Trump himself, upon whom they laid hands and prayed in the Oval Office in the hopes of delivering him from impeachment. But if she’s influencing the Domestic Policy Council on prisoner reentry or humanitarian aid, as required by Trump’s executive order creating her position, the evidence of her work is hard to see. What is much easier to see is how her ministry has benefitted from her White House perch.

“There’s no question that her position with the White House enhances her position and her profile across the country with regard to the increasing her viewership, increasing her income that comes into her organization.”

Pete Evans is the lead investigator with the nonprofit Trinity Foundation, a Christian watchdog group that keeps tabs on televangelists and their spending habits and advocates for people who’ve been duped by them into giving over their last dime. “There’s no question that her position with the White House enhances her position and her profile across the country with regard to the increasing her viewership,” he says, “increasing her income that comes into her organization.”

Much of White’s empire falls under the umbrella of the Paula White Ministries, the name she uses on her website and in fundraising appeals. But legally, Paula White Ministries is just another name for her home church, the City of Destiny Church in Apokpa, Florida, for which she is listed on corporate documents as president. Federal law bars churches from endorsing political candidates. Doing so can result in their losing their tax-exempt status. Yet White’s promotion of Trump now infuses many aspects of her ostensibly nonprofit ministry, which doesn’t seem to have slowed since her official White House appointment.

Last May, White said she would be stepping down as senior pastor at City of Destiny and handing the reins over to her son, Bradley Knight. But White still preaches there regularly—she’s on deck for a “power night” at the church on February 16, with her rock star husband Jonathan Cain. In April, she’ll be hosting a free, three-day conference there called “Unleashed,” that promises attendees an opportunity to hear from her and other evangelical preachers, some of whom are also in Trump’s inner circle.

The Paula White Ministries website is replete with videos of the televangelist with Trump, or of her on TV shows talking about her relationship with Trump, and cheerleading his policies. She even issued a statement supporting his signing of a new trade deal with Mexico and Canada. After Trump became the first president to personally address the anti-abortion March for Life in January, White wrote on her website, “May the grace of God continue to shine on President Trump for his courageous stance for the dignity of all life.” While preaching at a church in California, she said that her access to Trump had allowed her to anoint the White House as “holy ground.” Last summer, another Trump-supporting televangelist, Franklin Graham, called for a special national day of prayer on June 2 to pray for President Trump, which White promoted on her website. She solicited prayer commitments from her fans and promised to personally “take your name to the White House and let our President know you are praying for him and his family.”

Just out of curiosity, I recently made a prayer request through her website, asking her to pray for a family member. I got an email in return promising that White and her prayer intercessors would “deploy the Blood of Jesus on your behalf for your peace.” White also thanked me for “agreeing to pray for President Trump and his family on June 2nd.” Apparently, the form letter hasn’t been updated since last summer. Less than an hour later, I got another email from White asking me to send her a “favor seed” of $50 or more so that she could “Activate supernatural favor” on my behalf. “Favor will make you a household name overnight,” she writes knowingly.

Even as she’s running a nonprofit religious ministry and working a government job, White is once again front and center at many of Trump’s campaign rallies. On January 3, she introduced Trump at the Evangelicals for Trump coalition campaign rally at King Jesus, the same Miami mega church that hosted the Supernatural Ministry School. She told the same story about Trump, too, only this time, instead of rock-concert lighting, the backdrop consisted of American flags, and she stood behind a podium emblazoned with the official presidential seal. C-Span identified her on TV as the “White House spiritual adviser.” People in the audience cheered, “Four more years!”

“When religion and politics get mixed that’s a huge red flag for us,” says Evans. “It’s one of the prohibitions for nonprofits. They’re not supposed to get involved in politics or they risk losing their nonprofit status.” Questions about the nonprofit status of White’s ministries have come up long before she became a regular fixture at the White House. In 2007, White became one of six televangelists investigated by the Senate Finance Committee for potential abuses of their church nonprofit status. Unlike ordinary nonprofits, churches are not required to disclose any of their financial information to the public or the IRS, making their finances extremely opaque and vulnerable to abuses.

Among other things, a Senate report found that White’s personal ministry and the church she ran with her now ex-husband used tax-exempt ministry funds to pay nearly $900,000 one year for the Whites’ waterfront mansion. It paid over a million dollars in salaries to family members and kept the Whites in the air with a private jet. White and her church refused to cooperate with the investigation and in 2011, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), issued a report outlining the committee’s findings but took no other action. White’s church declared bankruptcy in 2014 after defaulting on $29 million in loans from an evangelical credit union. In 2011, amid controversy, she became senior pastor at the predominantly black City of Destiny—then known as New Destiny Christian Center—after its former pastor died of a drug overdose.

One of the problems with having White working in the White House, Evans notes, is that the agency charged with policing nonprofit churches like hers is the IRS, which Trump oversees as president. And one of Trump’s many promises to evangelicals in exchange for their campaign support is that he would help abolish the Johnson Amendment, the 1950s-era tax code provision that prohibits churches from endorsing political candidates. In 2017, he issued an executive order attempting to scale back its enforcement by the IRS. “When your boss is head of all government agencies, including the IRS, you’re really not risking anything” by cheerleading for the president’s reelection campaign, Evans says. “It really is a huge conflict of interest in my opinion.”

As she moved toward the ecstatic conclusion of her sermon at the Miami Supernatural School, White told the crowd, “I told you about the trailer to the White House because I’m not here by coincidence.” She urged people to pay up so she could begin the laying of hands. “You can’t just bring a gratitude offering. It has to be a First Fruits offering! If it is one week’s salary, if it’s a month. If it’s a day, it’s got to be the whole of something. Quickly! Bring it up—do you need an envelope?” she said, directing people to give the First Fruits to the apostles holding baskets. Others, whose gratitude offering was more meagre, should toss theirs on the floor. “God’s about to do something!” White announced.

Before Trump held his January campaign rally at King Jesus, the church leader and Trump supporter, Pastor Guillermo Maldonado, had to issue a special announcement reassuring his congregation that no undocumented immigrants would be deported if they came to the rally—an indication of the church’s demographics. As the bilingual sermon rose to a climax, White gave a performance that gives a whole new meaning to Ronald Reagan’s nine most terrifying words in the English language: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

When every last dime seemed to have been wrung from the audience, White invited all the “barren” women in the room who desired children to come to the front, “because fruitfulness is getting ready to hit this house. God’s about to open your natural womb. God’s gonna open barren places.” She told a story about helping a woman in Hawaii with no uterus and no fallopian tubes give birth. Then she moved to each hopeful woman—some of whom were infertile, others who struggled with repeated miscarriages—and held their hands or touched her belly, telling one that she’d no longer miscarry. One woman fell on the floor. Others cried in expectation of fruitfulness. White wept and spoke in tongues. “Holy, holy, holy, hallelujah,” she cried, and then held a basket of money up high. “It is blessed!”

When it was over, White held a book signing for her newest book release, Something Greater, which is all about her relationship with God. But Something Greater, of course, is really all about her relationship with Trump. His name is mentioned 177 times in 288 pages. Jesus merits just 82.

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https://www.rawstory.com/2019/11/trump-wanted-to-build-a-megachurch-with-prosperity-gospel-grifter-paula-white-report/

[very cozy pix]

prosperity gospel preacher Paula White, who has laid claim as President Donald Trump’s “spiritual adviser,” has told the :{Washington Examiner’s:(style="margin:0px;padding:0px;border:0px;vertical-align:baseline"):}: Paul Bedard that the president has in the past talked about building a megachurch.

According to White, Trump first brought up building an all-glass cathedral with her back in 2006. White says that Trump had even picked out an architect for the project, although she says it never came to fruition because the timing wasn’t right for her.

“He said, ‘Let’s build a crystal cathedral for God,'” she claims.

Although Trump never followed through on this plan to build his own megachurch, White holds out hope that he’ll take action on it in the future.

“Who knows what God will do,” she says. “Who knows, maybe we will end up building a cathedral.”

White also detailed the president’s purported Christian faith, which she claimed was very strong despite not speaking “Christian-ese.”

White, who opened the National Day of Prayer Event at the White House in 2017 and who has just landed an official job at the White House, has drawn criticism from many Christians over the years, including her business in which she sells believers “resurrection seeds” that will grant them eternal life for the low price of just $1,144.

==

https://www.alternet.org/2020/01/pretty-messed-up-church-of-satan-jesuit-priest-and-others-blast-white-house-spiritual-advisor-for-commanding-any-satanic-pregnancies-to-miscarry-now/

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/01/evangelicals-are-anticipating-the-end-of-the-world-and-trump-is-listening/

no lnx

Evangelicals Love Donald Trump for Many Reasons, But One of Them Is Especially Terrifying

End Times.

Stephanie Mencimer January 23, 2020

Mother Jones

The enemies of Israel have unleashed a massive air attack on the Promised Land. Hundreds of fighter jets streak across the sky. But before Israel can be destroyed, fire rains from the heavens and the enemy jets explode in mid-air with no explanation. Hailstones the size of golf balls follow the fire. The ground shakes. Birds pick clean the bodies of the fallen attackers. The enemy is vanquished without a single Israeli casualty, and the country is saved.

These are some of the opening scenes of the bestselling 1995 book Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days, by Jerry B. Jenkins and the late evangelical minister Tim LaHaye. But don’t mistake this scenario for a mere action sequence: It’s based on the war of Gog and Magog, a biblical conflict prophesied in the Book of Ezekiel. In the Bible, Gog is the leader of Magog, a “place in the far north” that many evangelicals believe is Russia. According to Ezekiel’s prophecy, Gog will join with Persia—now Iran—and other Arab nations to attack a peaceful Israel “like a cloud that covers the land.” LaHaye, like many evangelicals, believed this battle would bring on the Rapture, the End Times event when God spirits away the good Christians to heaven before unleashing plagues, sickness, and other horrors on the unbelievers remaining on Earth. Meanwhile, the Antichrist reigns supreme.

The story of Gog and Magog is central to the bloody eschatology long embraced by millions of American evangelicals. In recent years, End Times has gained special political currency as believers have seen any number of Middle East conflagrations as fulfilling Ezekiel’s prophecy, notably the US invasion of Iraq and the war in Syria. Gog and Magog took on fresh relevance earlier this month, when the Trump administration assassinated Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force.

On many levels, President Donald Trump’s self-created crisis in Iran seems to have no relationship to any sort of coherent foreign policy or geopolitical plan for the future. The assassination has yielded few if any tangible rewards for the US. But there is an eager constituency for Trump’s improvised policy toward the Middle East and Iran in particular: the evangelical Christians who see it as a means of ushering in the return of Christ. Lured by the promise of conservative Supreme Court justices, anti-abortion measures, and a commitment to Christian supremacy under the guise of religious freedom, white evangelicals voted for Trump in higher numbers than any other group—more than 80 percent.

He desperately needs them if he’s going to be reelected. And while some have expressed concern about the administration’s inching toward war with Iran, many of those with what were once fringe beliefs have cheered the killing of Soleimani. “Iran has this big part to play in biblical history,” says religious historian Diana Butler Bass, who grew up in the evangelical church, attended an evangelical college and seminary, and wrote her Ph.D. thesis at Duke University on American fundamentalism. “There are these particular prophecies from Ezekiel, where there is talk of a war that will happen at a very important moment in Israel’s history. And that war is going to kick off the End Times. People in this prophetic community believe Iran is going to be one of these aggressors.”

“When Iran gets into the news, especially with anything to do with war, it’s sort of a prophetic dog whistle to evangelicals.”

Bass thinks this worldview may be central to understanding Trump’s foreign policy. “When Iran gets into the news, especially with anything to do with war, it’s sort of a prophetic dog whistle to evangelicals. They will support anything that seems to edge the world towards this conflagration,” she says. “They don’t necessarily want violence, but they’re eager for Christ to return and they think that this war with Iran and Israel has to happen for their larger hope to pass.”

Not all or even most evangelicals believe in the literal truth of these sorts of prophecies, though nearly 60 percent of white evangelicals, according to one 2010 poll, believe Jesus is definitely or probably going to return by the year 2050. But those who do subscribe to this apocalyptic world view seem to be overrepresented among Trump’s religious supporters and advisers. In October, a host of influential evangelical pastors came to the White House to pray with Trump to protect him from impeachment. Among those who laid hands on the president as he stood, head bowed, in the Oval Office, was repeat visitor Greg Laurie, pastor of a California megachurch. A few days after the killing of Soleimani, Laurie made a YouTube video with Don Stewart, author of 25 Signs We Are Near the End, to discuss Iran and the End Times. “The scenario that the Bible predicted, seemingly so impossible,” Stewart promised, “is now falling into place.”

From the outset, Trump has surrounded himself with people who hail from the fringes of the evangelical community that is steeped in the language of biblical prophecy, and his administration regularly reflects that language back to them in its messaging. In March 2017, for instance, Trump issued an official White House statement recognizing the Persian New Year in which he misattributed a quote to Cyrus the Great, the libertine pagan leader of the ancient Persian empire who was anointed by God to free Jews in Babylon. Ordinary Americans probably wouldn’t have even noticed the announcement, but evangelicals knew that Trump was speaking their language. Many of them believe Trump is like Cyrus, a flawed nonbeliever who nonetheless is chosen by God to work his miracles on Earth.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was reportedly instrumental in pushing for the killing of Soleimani, is also a master of such messaging. In March, during an interview in Jerusalem with the Christian Broadcasting Network (founded by another apocalyptic preacher, Pat Robertson), Pompeo showed his familiarity with another Iran-centric Bible story popular with End Times evangelicals. In the story, a Persian king is urged to slaughter the Jews in his kingdom at the urging of the evil adviser Haman. But his Jewish Queen Esther convinces him not to and saves her people. Asked whether he thought Trump could be a modern-day Esther, saving the Jews from Iran, Pompeo replied, “As a Christian, I certainly believe that’s possible.” The secretary of state’s End Times beliefs made headlines again after the Soleimani killing, as meme-makers circulated a quote from a speech he made in a Kansas church in 2015. A few days after the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Pompeo said: “We will continue to fight these battles. It is a never-ending struggle. … until the Rapture.”

The State Department did not respond to questions about how Pompeo’s religious views may affect his foreign policy decisions. But it’s not hard to see how apocalyptic evangelicalism might be influencing the Trump administration as it seeks to mobilize the millions of evangelicals reached by televangelists and megachurch pastors preaching the End Times. The most blatant appeal to this constituency came when Trump made the controversial decision to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a long-desired goal of evangelicals who see it as fulfilling a biblical prophecy necessary in securing the Second Coming. What may be less obvious is how Trump’s disdain for international governing bodies like NATO also dovetails almost perfectly with End Times theology, whether he realizes it or not.

Matthew Avery Sutton, a Washington State University history professor and author of American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism, says evangelicals who believe the end is near have always been hostile to any sort of international organizations. That’s because they believe biblical prophecies that say that in the last days, a world leader who preaches peace will emerge and move toward a one-world government. In fact, the prophecy goes, that leader will be the Antichrist who will force the world to accept a false religion and persecute people who don’t accept him as a Messiah. (In Left Behind, the Antichrist is a Romanian UN secretary-general.) Evangelicals love Trump’s talk of pulling out of NATO, his attacks on the UN, and his trashing of the Paris climate change accord. “They hate the UN,” Sutton says. “Trump’s unilateralism is also music to their ears.”

Trump is not the first president to surround himself with evangelical Christians with an apocalyptic bent. Ronald Reaganwas advised by Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell, andpersonally believed in the End Times and the coming apocalypse, writing about it in his journals. He appointed people like Interior Secretary James Watt, a Pentecostal fundamentalist whose disdain for environmental conservation seemed to be informed by his belief that the end of the world was nigh. In an appearance before Congress, he told stunned lawmakers, “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.”

Apparently George W. Bush was also part of this apocalypse-now group. When Bush was trying to convince French president Jacques Chirac to support an invasion of Iran in 2003, he reportedly told Chirac: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled.” Chirac had no idea what Bush was talking about and had to consult a biblical scholar.

George W. Bush: “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East. Biblical prophecies are being fulfilled.”

Trump, who seems unable to distinguish between the New and Old Testaments, doesn’t seem particularly fluent in the prophecies of Ezekiel. But he has brought into the White House a host of people who are.Quite a few also hail from what Bass delicately describes as the “not respectable charlatan wing” of evangelical Christianity. They’re the prosperity preachers and prophets of the sort depicted by Sinclair Lewis in Elmer Gantry. “I have no doubt at all that those people are sitting right next to [Trump], giving him these Bible verses, telling him about these prophecies,” Bass says, “which means that they are kind of egging him on, [telling him] that he’s part of God’s prophetic fulfillment for these last days.”

Many of those who have become White House regulars are associated with something known as the New Apostolic Reformation, what Christianity Today describes as “a loosely connected group of Pentecostals and Charismatics.” They’re the ones who speak in tongues, scour the news for clues to biblical prophecies, engage in faith healing, and preach prosperity gospel—the notion that faith in God (or, usually, the preacher) will make people wealthy (or at least enrich the preacher). These apostles tend to embrace “dominionist” theology that implores Christians to take over of all levels of government, media, and education as a way of preparing for the End Times and return of Christ. Influential politicians like former Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), who has made several visits to the Trump White House, former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and former Trump Energy Secretary Rick Perry fall into this camp.

Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at the liberal nonprofit People for the American Way who has tracked the religious right for many years, says that the network of preachers who come from NAR and Pentecostal media operations “are telling people over and over again that Trump was ‘chosen,’ that God intervened in the election. Some of them say very explicitly that Trump is playing a role in God’s End Time plans to bring about the return of Christ.”

One of the most prominent representatives of the Left Behind wing of the evangelical movement is San Antonio televangelist John Hagee, who has been calling for a war with Iran for more than a 15 years. In 2005, Hagee wrote a best-selling book, Jerusalem Countdown, that claimed the Bible predicted a war with Iran. (In2011, it was turned into a movie of the same title, starring Bionic Man Lee Majors and Randy Travis.) Shortly after the book was published, Hagee created Christians United for Israel, a Christian Zionist organization that now claims to have 8 million members. It lobbies for support for Israeli settlements, military aid to Israel, and for the US to join with Israel to launch a preemptive strike on Iran.

He has said that gays caused Hurricane Katrina, referred to the Catholic Church as the “great whore,” called Hitler a “half-breed” Jew, and said that Hitler was part of God’s plan to get the Jews back to Israel.

Hagee, now 79, had once been popular with powerful Republicans during the George W. Bush administration, despite some of his more controversial statements. Among other things, he has said that gays caused Hurricane Katrina, referred to the Catholic Church as the “great whore,” called Hitler a “half-breed” Jew, and said that Hitler was part of God’s plan to get the Jews back to Israel. His star began to fall in 2008 after he endorsed Sen. John McCain for the GOP presidential nomination. McCain rejected his support, calling Hagee’s views “crazy and unacceptable.”

The election of Barack Obama consigned Hagee to his megachurch in San Antonio. But Trump has restored him to the corridors of power in Washington. Hagee endorsed Trump early in 2016. Once Trump was elected, Hagee met with the new president for two hours in 2017 to discuss moving the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Foreign policy experts feared the embassy relocation would destabilize the region and hamper peace talks, but Trump moved it anyway in May 2018. Israeli troops killed more than 50 people in the protests that followed.

Hagee attended the opening ceremony alongside notables such as Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner, and he gave the closing benediction.“Let every Islamic terrorist hear this message: Israel lives,” he announced. “Let it echo down the marble halls of the presidential palace in Iran: Israel lives.” He later told the Texas Observer that he was looking forward to Trump confronting Iran, explaining, “The sum of Iran’s evil is greater than the whole of its parts.”

When Christians United for Israel held its annual DC confab and lobbying day last summer, Trump sent no fewer than five top administration officials to address attendees, including Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence (both evangelicals themselves), then–national security adviser John Bolton, a special envoy to the Middle East, and the US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman. Pompeo opened the speech by telling the crowd of more than 5,000 people, “This is what it must have looked like to be part of the crowd for the fishes and the loaves. What a miracle that was.” Once more the story of Queen Esther came in handy, this time as Pompeo compared it to modern-day Iran.

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Hagee is one of the most prominent of Trump’s evangelical supporters who see a war with Iran as a necessary step towards the End Times, but he’s far from the only one. The White House has hosted a steady stream of dominionists and NAR apostles since Trump took office, including Lance Wallnau, author of God’s Chaos President.An evangelical leader with a consulting business in Dallas, Wallnau has become famous as one of the few evangelicals who accurately prophesied Trump’s election after receiving divine inspiration to read chapter 45 of the Book of Isaiah. That’s the story of King Cyrus, whom Wallnau and many other evangelicals think Trump resembles.(For $45, Wallnau and ex-con televangelist Jim Bakker now sell a Trump/Cyrus coin that people can use to pray for Trump’s reelection.) Dr. Lance, as he’s known, has made several visits to the White House, including for a private briefing on Jared Kushner’s Middle East peace plan.

Facilitating many of these visits is Paula White-Cain, the controversial televangelist associated with the Trinity Broadcasting Network who became Trump’s spiritual adviser after he saw her preach on TV in the early aughts. White led a 20,000-strong megachurch in Tampa that was investigated by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) in 2007 for lavish spending on private jets and big houses and possible violations of its tax-exempt status. His report did not find any wrongdoing—church leaders refused to cooperate with the investigation—but in 2012, White’s church declared bankruptcy. She went on to lead a mostly African American church in Florida where she remained until last spring, when her son took over the ministry.

Now on her third marriage, White has long been at odds with more elite, mainstream evangelicals because of her particular self-help brand of prosperity gospel. Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore called White a “charlatan” and “heretic.” Nonetheless, in late October, Trump installed her in an official post at the White House office of public liaison to do outreach to evangelicals, formalizing access for some of the more extreme members of that group. She has referred to Trump as a modern-day Esther and called his enemies “demonic.”

Bass says that evangelical elites of the sort who associated with President George W. Bush have long looked down their noses at populist preachers like White and her crowd, but Trump has elevated them to positions of power. It’s a win-win situation. The evangelicals are at last in the influential positions those who disparaged them once held. And Trump’s narcissism is receiving special nourishment by their insistence that he was chosen by God. “I think that Trump likes it when people think he’s close to God—he called himself the ‘chosen one’—and to think that all of this has some sort of divine backing,” Bass says. “I don’t think there’s ever been a president who was quite influenced by this stream of evangelicalism as Trump has been.”

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Naturally, there are political benefits to all of this. The administration has struggled to provide evidence of any imminent threats from Soleimani, but the timing for the assassination was certainly fortuitous for someone looking to mobilize evangelicals. Not only was Trump embroiled in impeachment hearings, he was still chaffing from a recent editorial in the evangelical publication Christianity Today, founded by Billy Graham, calling for him to be removed from office on moral grounds. Trump announced the killing of Soleimani just hours before appearing at the launch of his campaign’s Evangelicals for Trump coalition in Miami.

That event took place at a Pentacostal Latino church headed by Guillermo Maldonado, who speaks in tongues and hosts a TV show called “The Supernatural Now.” He’s the founder of the King Jesus International Ministry, a Miami megachurch with upwards of 20,000 members and a large TV and radio presence. Maldonado is also another regular White House visitor who has preached that Trump has a role in God’s plans for the End Times. At the 2019 Global Prophetic Summit, he claimed that God told him, “America, I have prepared this time, I have raised somebody in office to open the doors for my gospels.”

André Gagné, a theology professor at Concordia University in Montreal, says the apocalyptic worldview is concerning at such high levels of power, because believers may be rather sanguine about the possibility that assassinating an Iranian general might spur an even bigger war or nuclear confrontation in the Middle East. “If it brings the end of the world, it brings the end of the world,” Gagné says. “They’re ready. They can’t wait for the Rapture to happen. For them it’s the ultimate reunion with God.”

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1219 schism on djt?

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/white-evangelicals-still-view-support-for-trump-as-spiritual-warfare-against-the-demonic-forces-pushing-for-his-impeachment

no lnx

White evangelicals still view support for Trump as ‘spiritual warfare’ against the ‘demonic forces’ pushing for his impeachment

Written by Alex Henderson December 23, 2019

Although President Donald Trump has plenty of critics in Christianity — some Catholics, some Mainline Protestants — he is still quite popular among far-right white evangelical fundamentalists. So when Mark Galli, the retiring editor-in-chief of the evangelical Christianity Today, wrote a scathing anti-Trump op-ed last week, many of Trump’s white evangelical supporters were furious —  including Franklin Graham, son of the late Christianity Today founder Billy Graham.And journalist Ed Kilgore, in a December 23 article for New York Magazine, stresses that Trump’s critics shouldn’t think white evangelical support for him is softening — they still view Trump as their champion.

White evangelical support for Trump, Kilgore observes, goes beyond Trump putting so many far-right judges on the federal judiciary: as they see it, fighting Trump’s impeachment and getting him reelected in 2020 is a form of spiritual warfare.

“Many Christian Right leaders and members of their flocks view political battles involving Trump as spiritual warfare between holy and demonic forces, with the crude, self-idolizing and heathenish POTUS treated as unquestionably the champion of the Prince of Peace,” Kilgore explains.

Kilgore points to a December 19 article by Sarah Posner for Type Investigations as having some of the best reporting in recent days on the amount of unwavering support Trump still enjoys among far-right white evangelicals.

Posner reported, “Trump’s evangelical base is a sprawling, interconnected network of political advocacy groups, megachurches, White House advisers, televangelists and prayer warriors. It also includes a formidable, data-driven get-out-the-vote operation.”

Posner’s article cites some of the well-known Christian Right extremists who remain committed to helping Trump win a second term in 2020, and they range from the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Ralph Reed to the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins. Another is Jim Bakker.

According to Posner, “Inside this ecosystem, impeachment is, at best, a partisan sideshow concocted by Democrats to distract the public from Trump’s many important accomplishments. At worst, it is a satanic scheme to upend God’s plan for America — which was to install Trump in office in order to ensure the nation is governed by Christians who espouse ‘biblical’ values.”

One of Trump’s top allies in his Christian Right outreach, Kilgore observes, is Florida-based evangelist Paula White — who preaches an ideology called the Prosperity Gospel. In contrast to all the Catholics and Mainline Protestants who equate greed, materialism and avarice with sinfulness, the Prosperity Gospel associates a fat bank account with being a good Christian and poverty with moral failings.So when Republicans go out of their way to hurt the poor, proponents of the Prosperity Gospel see that as righteous Christian behavior.

Kilgore warns, “No, these people are not going to abandon Donald Trump. They are now so complicit in his presidency that to question him is to condemn themselves to a judgement too terrible to contemplate.”

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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/paula-whites-one-voice-prayer-movement-praises-god-for-trump-judges-republican-courts/

https://www.rawstory.com/2019/11/how-mike-pence-meddled-in-foreign-aid-to-reroute-money-to-favored-christian-groups/

Last November, a top Trump appointee at the U.S. Agency for International Development wrote a candid email to colleagues about pressure from the White House to reroute Middle East aid to religious minorities, particularly Christian groups “Sometimes this decision will be made for us by the White House (see… Iraq! And, increasingly, Syria),” said Hallam Ferguson, a senior official in USAID’s Middle East bureau, in an email seen by ProPublica. “We need to stay ahead of this curve everywhere lest our interventions be dictated to us.”< >The email underscored what had become a stark reality under the Trump White House. Decisions about U.S. aid are often no longer being governed by career professionals applying a rigorous review of applicants and their capabilities. Over the last two years, political pressure, particularly from the office of Vice President Mike Pence, had seeped into aid deliberations and convinced key decision-makers that unless they fell in line, their jobs could be at stake.

Five months before Ferguson sent the email, his former boss had been ousted following a mandate from Pence’s chief of staff. Pence had grown displeased with USAID’s work in Iraq after Christian groups were turned down for aid.

ProPublica viewed internal emails and conducted interviews with nearly 40 current and former U.S. officials and aid professionals that shed new light on the success of Pence and his allies in influencing the government’s long-standing process for awarding foreign aid. Most people spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration’s efforts to influence USAID funding sparked concern from career officials, who worried the agency risked violating constitutional prohibitions on favoring one religion over another. They also were concerned that being perceived as favoring Christians could worsen Iraq’s sectarian divides.

“There are very deliberate procurement guidelines that have developed over a number of years to guard precisely against this kind of behavior,” said Steven Feldstein, a former State Department and USAID official during the Obama administration. When politics intrude on the grant-making process, “you’re diluting the very nature of what development programs ought to accomplish.”

USAID regulations state that awards “must be free from political interference or even the appearance of such interference and must be made on the basis of merit, not on the basis of the religious affiliation of a recipient organization, or lack thereof.”

Last month, USAID announced two grants to Iraqi organizations that career officials had previously rejected. Political appointees significantly impacted the latest awards, according to interviews with officials and other people aware of the process. Typically, such appointees have little to no involvement in USAID grants, to avoid perceptions of undue political influence on procurement.

One of the groups selected for the newest awards has no full-time paid staff, no experience with government grants and a financial tie that would typically raise questions in an intense competition for limited funds. The second organization received its first USAID direct grant after extensive public comments by its leader and allies highlighting what they described as a lack of U.S. assistance to Christians. The two groups — a charity that primarily serves Christian Iraqis and a Catholic university — were not originally listed as front-runners, according to a document seen by ProPublica.

The Wall Street Journal and BuzzFeed have previously reported Pence’s interest in increasing foreign aid to Christians and his displeasure with USAID’s activities in Iraq.

Pence’s spokeswoman, Katie Waldman, did not respond to questions. A USAID spokeswoman did not respond to specific questions, including about Ferguson’s email, but said the latest grants were appropriate.

“The Trump Administration has made responding to the genocide committed by the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) against religious and ethnic minorities a top priority,” said the spokeswoman, Pooja Jhunjhunwala. “Assistance to religious and ethnic communities targeted by ISIS is not a departure from the norm, but rather a continuation of USAID’s rich history of promoting inclusive development and defending human dignity and religious freedom in our partner countries.”

Approximately 97% of Iraq’s population is Muslim, according to the most recent U.S. figures available. Religious minorities — including Christians, Yazidis and others — make up around 2% to 3% of Iraq’s total population.

The Trump administration’s efforts to steer funding to these minorities in Iraq stand in stark contrast to its overall approach to foreign aid. It has repeatedly proposed cutting U.S. diplomatic and foreign assistance budgets by billions of dollars. In August, as the White House was considering cuts to an array of foreign aid programs, it shielded funding for religious minorities abroad, according to newsaccounts.

As Trump mounts a 2020 reelection effort, he is taking steps to solidify his conservative Christian base, including his decision last week to install his spiritual adviser, Florida televangelist Paula White, in a White House position. Increasing aid to Christians abroad is a core value for his supporters.

In a speech last month at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, a major gathering of the religious right, Trump touted his administration’s work on behalf of religious minorities in Iraq and Syria....

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Paula White: Christians Must Vote For Trump Because His Judges Won't Let States Outlaw the Bible

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http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/for-trump-spiritual-adviser-paula-white-judaisms-holiest-day-is-another-reason-to-give-her-money/

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President’s spiritual adviser: Saying no to President Trump ‘would be saying no to God’

Elizabeth Preza October 9, 2019

President Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White says she was ordered by God to serve the Republican president. The prosperity gospel pastor explained that she was compelled to serve as…

Cody Fenwick    May 3, 2019

At the White House’s National Day of Prayer event on Thursday, leaders in different religions had the chance to speak before attendees and deliver a brief message or invocation from their…

At the White House’s National Day of Prayer event on Thursday, leaders in different religions had the chance to speak before attendees and deliver a brief message or invocation from their faith traditions. But one speaker stood out among all the rest, the woman who is said to be Trump’s spiritual adviser and personal pastor.

Her name is Paula White, the leader of an evangelical megachurch in Florida and advocate of the prosperity gospel — a widely disparaged creed that offers the promises of present-day riches in exchange for spiritual devotion and faith. It’s a belief system with striking parallels — and often is an outright cover for — financial scams. (“As recently as last year,” the Guardian reported in March, “White encouraged members of her congregation to send their first month’s salary to her ministry to enjoy God’s blessings.”)

While the other speakers approached the lectern and spoke solemnly and calmly, White barreled up to the microphone and began immediately speaking a mile a minute, telling the audience to grab each other hands.

And despite her cheerful demeanor, her speech struck some dark and ominous notes.

“We are not wrestling against flesh and blood but against principalities, wickedness and darkness, so we declare every demonic network to be scattered right now,” she said. “We declare right now that there is a hedge of protection over our president, first lady, every assignment, the purpose they carry and the mantle.”

She continued: “And like the apostle, apostle Paul, said in Galatians: ‘I was set apart from my mother’s whom, and marked off by boundaries.’ For let him fulfill all the will of the Lord and do the assignment God has carried him to do for your great name, for your great nation and all your people in the world.”

It was a small peek inside the relationship between Trump and White, who has owned an apartment in one of Trump’s buildings for years, The Guardian has reported. She told the outlet that her meeting and forming a relationship with Trump was an ‘assignment” from God.

She has defended the president at some of his lowest movements, such as the revelations around his abusive migrant family separation policy and his deadly neglect of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, giving cover for him with his crucial evangelical base. She has also advised him on policy, according to the Guardian, such as the decision to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Watch the clip of her remarks from the National Day of Prayer below: