Paula White-Cain, 58, is a pastor, author, and televangelist from Tupelo, Mississippi, known for her role as a spiritual advisor to Donald Trump and other celebrities.
She has written several books and is a leader in the charismatic movement.
Early Life and Ministry
Paula Michelle White-Cain (née Furr; born April 20, 1966) was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, the daughter of Myra Joanelle and Donald Paul Furr III. Donald and Myra Furr's marriage began to fail when White was five years old.
White's mother left Tupelo and took her to Memphis; her separation from her husband and his subsequent suicide drove White, her brother, and her mother into poverty. White's mother became an alcoholic. While she worked, caregivers looked after her daughter.
White has said that she was sexually and physically abused between the ages of six and thirteen by different people on different occasions. White's mother married a two-star admiral in the United States Navy when White was nine years old. Her family moved to the Washington, D.C.
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While living in Maryland in 1984, White converted to Christianity at the Damascus Church of God. The Tampa Christian Center was founded in Tampa, Florida, by the then-married Paula and Randy White in 1991. The church struggled financially and could not afford to pay the Whites a salary for the first two years. From 1991 to 1998, the church changed locations three times.
On December 31, 2011, the New Destiny Christian Center board in Apopka, Florida, announced it had appointed White to succeed Zachery Tims as its senior pastor. New Destiny Christian Center had been searching for a replacement since Tims's death in August 2011. Upon hearing of the controversy, White addressed the New Destiny Christian Center during a service she led: "I'm not asking you to like me. I'm not asking you to love me or respect me, because I'll do the work to earn that.
On May 5, 2019, White announced that she was stepping down as senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center and that her son and his wife would become the new senior pastors. White recorded the first broadcast of Paula White Today in December 2001.
White considers T. D. Jakes her spiritual father. Jakes invited her to speak at his 2000 "Woman Thou Art Loosed" conference. White has ministered to Michael Jackson, Gary Sheffield, and Darryl Strawberry. In 2003, after Strawberry completed a prison sentence for cocaine possession, White became his personal pastor. White's ministry began to take on modern-day prophetic aspects in the early 2010s that are common in Independent Charismatic Christianity.
Controversies and Criticisms
Critics accuse her of promoting the prosperity gospel, which she denies. White-Cain has spoken about overcoming a troubled childhood, including abuse and her father’s suicide, before converting to Christianity in Maryland.
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The move brought renewed focus on White, Trump’s longtime spiritual guru. And for White, not all of it will be welcome. In March, she was criticized over an alleged cash-for-blessings scandal, while other rightwing Christians are unhappy with her new government role, with one describing White as “100% a false teacher”.
In March, as Easter approached, White was criticised for a video in which she appeared to offer “seven supernatural blessings” for the price of $1,000, including the assignation of a personal angel.
White, whose preaching has been described as adhering to “prosperity gospel” theology - the belief that praying will result in financial gains - said the blessings would also include prosperity and “increase in inheritance”. White denied that people had to pay to receive the blessings, a spokesperson for Paula White Ministries telling the Christian Post: “This story is a deceptive smear.
Pastor White specifically says in the very same video, ‘you’re not doing this to get something,’ and the solicitation, which was later in the program, makes it clear that any donation to the ministry should only be ‘as the Holy Spirit leads.’ Moreover, donations to the ministry do not directly benefit Pastor White.”
Still, even some rightwing Christians were unimpressed with White’s appointment. Jon Root, a Turning Point USA contributor and conservative influencer who supports Trump, told Notus: “Anybody that you know holds true to strong biblical conviction and discernment wouldn’t be involved with Paula White. She’s 100% a false teacher.”
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In any case, the “seven supernatural blessings” was not the first time White has introduced finances into faith. In 2016, she offered “resurrection seeds” for sale for $1,144, claiming in a recorded speech that God had told her the price point.
It is unclear how many seeds were sold. But it is known that there have been questions over White’s financial maneuvers.
CNN reported that White’s former church, Without Walls International, received $150m between 2004 and 2006, and a three-year investigation by Chuck Grassley, a Republican senator from Iowa, described how the church and White’s personal ministry used tax-exempt funds to pay a million dollars in salaries to family members and spent money on a private jet.
Other questions about White relate to her beliefs and statements on issues including race and immigration. The Grio reported that White had particular animus for the Black Lives Matter movement, and said in a 2020 speech: “Christ’s likeness is not found in my gender, it is not found in my culture, it is not found in my ethnicity, it is not found in KKK, it is not found in Antifa, and it is not found in Black Lives Matter. All of which are anti-Christ, and even terrorist organizations.”
During Trump’s first term, White, then the president’s spiritual adviser, raised eyebrows when she said Jesus would have been “sinful” and not “our Messiah” if he had broken immigration law.
“I think so many people have taken biblical scriptures out of context on this, to say stuff like: ‘Well, Jesus was a refugee,’” White told the Christian Broadcasting Network. “And yes, he did live in Egypt for three and a half years. But it was not illegal.
White-Cain, a longtime supporter of Trump, has been credited for her skill at bringing views long considered extreme into the mainstream of conservative Christianity.
Role as Spiritual Advisor to Donald Trump
White is a spiritual advisor to Donald Trump. She served as chair of the evangelical advisory board to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. White delivered the invocation at Trump's first inauguration on January 20, 2017, becoming the first female clergy member to deliver an inaugural invocation.
In November 2019, Trump appointed White as a special advisor to the Faith and Opportunity Initiative at the Office of Public Liaison. White supported Trump in his 2020 reelection campaign, delivering a prayer at his June 2020 campaign launch event.
White warned that "Christians that don't support President Trump will have to answer to God." One day after the election, when election results showed Trump was losing to Joe Biden, White appeared at a live-streamed prayer service in which she spoke in tongues and repeatedly called on "angelic reinforcement" from angels from Africa and South America to secure Trump's reelection.
White has been described as a Christian nationalist and a "Christian Trumpist" who has forged close political ties with Donald Trump. Unlike some other Christian nationalists associated with Trump, White has been described as valuing Christian identity over racial identity.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order to form a task force under Attorney General Pam Bondi and the Department of Justice to "eradicate anti-Christian bias" inside the federal government and prosecute violence against Christians, although he did not provide any examples.
And Trump also issued an executive order forming a White House faith office and appointed controversial Florida pastor Paula White-Cain to lead it. White-Cain, a pastor at StoryLife Church and president of Paula White Ministries, both based in Apopka, has been a longtime friend and personal minister to Trump.
White will be “senior adviser” of Trump’s faith office, which Trump announced along with an executive order which created a “Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias”.
“While I am in the White House, we will protect Christians in our schools, in our military, in our government, in our workplaces, hospitals, and in our public squares, and we will bring our countries back together as one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all,” Trump said in a speech announcing the creation of the faith office.
The appointment of White suggests some of those methods of protection could be unorthodox.
Trump's Faith Advisor Paula White Is Now a White House Staffer | NowThis
Personal Life
White was married to Randy White from 1990 to 2007. They met while attending Damascus Church of God in Maryland, where Randy White was an associate pastor.
White-Cain - who is based in Apopka and married to Jonathan Cain, who played guitar and keyboard for the band Journey and is now part of the Christian music scene - is aligned with a movement of Christianity religious scholars call “Independent Charismatic Christians,” a part of the New Apostolic Reformation. It blends Pentecostal practices with modern-day Evangelicalism, and its followers believe some leaders - like White-Cain and Maldonado - are apostles or prophets.