Prominent conservative Christians are up in arms about President-elect Trump's choice of a controversial televangelist to deliver one of the prayers at his inauguration on Jan. 20.
Florida's Paula White, age 50, will join Franklin Graham, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other religious leaders in participating in the Trump inaugural festivities. Unlike the others, White is a proponent of the "prosperity gospel" — the belief that God blesses the faithful with health and wealth — who has come under attack for her theology, marital history and finances.
"Paula White is a trinity denying heretic," wrote conservative Christian commentator Erick Erickson. "She rejects the Council of Nicaea's creed that every Christian accepts. To reject the orthodoxy of the Nicene Creed is to reject Christianity itself."
"Paula White is a charlatan and recognized as a heretic by every orthodox Christian, of whatever tribe," echoed Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
"Paula White has a long history of bankruptcies, failed business ventures, and unsuccessful marriages, which makes her the perfect choice to deliver a prayer on behalf a president-elect who has proudly proclaimed that he's never felt the need to ask forgiveness from God for anything," complained Paula Bolyard in a post titled "Twice Divorced Paula White Praying at Trump Inaugural Exactly What We Expected."
White delivered the benediction on the first day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July, where Trump was nominated for president.
The loudest voices against White are anti-Trump evangelicals who have been warning their coreligionists against the president-elect since the campaign. But many Christians regard the prosperity gospel as incompatible with Scripture and view pastors who promote it as likely to take financial advantage of their flocks.
White has drawn attention for her own lavish lifestyle, as the owner of expensive homes (including an apartment at Trump Towers) and cars. The Tampa Tribune reported that her broadcast business earned between $50,000 to $80,000 a week while a decade ago she and her then-husband were taking compensating ranging from $600,000 to $1.5 million a year.
Erickson argues that her theological problems go beyond the prosperity gospel to rejecting core Christian doctrines agreed upon across denominations, as evidenced by comments she made to worshippers that were captured on video.
"The President of the United States putting a heretic on stage who claims to believe in Jesus, but does not really believe in Jesus, risks leading others astray," he wrote. "Christians have an obligation to speak in defense of their faith. Trump letting this heretic pray in Jesus's name should offend every Bible believing Christian."
"I'd rather a Hindu pray on Inauguration Day and not risk the souls of men, than one whose heresy lures in souls with promises of comfort only to damn them in eternity," Erickson concluded. "At least no one would mistake a Hindu, a Buddhist, or an atheist with being a representative of Christ's kingdom."
In the "What We Believe" section of the website for White's ministry, she explicitly affirms a belief in the trinity.
While much of the organized Christian right supported Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio in the Republican primaries, Trump made peace with these organizations by promising to appoint conservative judges and generally hew to a socially conservative agenda.
Trump won 80 percent of white born-again or evangelical Christians, according to the exit polls. That was better than not only Mitt Romney, a Mormon, in 2012, but also evangelical George W. Bush in 2004.
But the president-elect had natural appeal to prosperity gospel preachers, as his own self-help advice is a more secularized version of that message. Trump's parents attended a church pastored by Norman Vincent Peale, the Methodist turned Reformed author of "The Power of Positive Thinking."
Peale's teachings were a precursor of sorts to the prosperity gospel. The preacher, who died in 1993, performed Trump's wedding to his first wife Ivana. Peale's successor presided over Trump's wedding to his second wife Marla Maples.
The prosperity gospel is also an opening to broaden Trump's appeal across racial lines, as the tradition has made inroads in the black church. White herself has led a megachurch with a predominantly black congregation.
White chairs Trump's evangelical advisory board. She has organized meetings between Trump and other pastors. White is one of six clergy scheduled to pray, speak or read at Trump's inaugural, including some who have disagreed with the president-elect on immigration.
White's second husband was the evangelist Randy White, with whom she partnered in ministry. Her current husband is Jonathan Cain, a member of the rock band Journey.
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