Defiant Paula White slams Christian establishment: ‘Your opinion doesn’t matter’
Former President Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser Paula White has slammed the American Christian establishment for mischaracterizing her and her ministry, singling out the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission head Russell Moore for branding her a “heretic.”
White, who called on angels from Africa to help deliver victory to Trump in his failed reelection bid last November, lamented the politicization of her life during a Jan. 17 sermon at her City of Destiny Church in Florida.
She asserted that her work with the former president was not political but an “assignment” from God, noting that politics has divided the church and repentance needs to happen.
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“Don’t tell me we’re the party of unity with this and we’re going to unify, and every second we have, we’re just hurting people more and more and more, politicizing people’s lives. God didn’t call me to the world. I was sent on assignment to do things in the world, but I’m called to the church. And when the church is this polarized and this divided, God help us. How can we not mourn?” she asked.
White, who insisted she is not a “prosperity preacher” or “heretic,” as some Christians and Christian media have called her, then pointed out that it took a secular publication, The Washington Post, to appropriately define her ministry as “Charismatic Pentecostal.”
“They started by calling me a prosperity preacher. You know who that was? Christian magazine. Church. Then they called me a heretic. You know who that was? The head of ethics of one of the largest denominations. The church,” White said.
In June 2016, months before Trump’s election, Moore called White a “charlatan” and “heretic” on Twitter.
“Paula White is a charlatan and recognized as a heretic by every orthodox Christian, of whatever tribe,” wrote Moore, head of the SBC’s ERLC. The SBC is the largest Protestant denomination in America.
“Then they called me cult leader. You know who that was? The church. Now The Washington Post finally got it right, they called me a Charismatic Pentecostal, but I’m the ‘queen’ of it. This fringe movement of some 60-something million people. Do you hear what I’m saying? It’s not the atheist calling me a heretic, or cult leader or prosperity preacher. It’s the church,” White continued.
The Charismatic Pentecostal leader then defiantly declared to the Christian establishment that she doesn’t need their acceptance.
“If your name’s not God, your opinion doesn’t matter and your acceptance is not needed,” she said to cheers. “If your name is not God, Jehovah, Yahweh, El Shaddai, Jesus Christ then your opinion doesn’t matter and your acceptance is not needed.”
White further noted that she has been getting invitations to participate in efforts to bring the nation together in the wake of the hotly contested 2020 presidential election, but she can’t accept them because all she sees is a “bunch of hypocrisy.”
"I get a lot of invitations every single day. ‘Come on, bring healing to the nation. Bring everybody together.’ I’m like, you’re asking me to come on a show that I’m going to fight with people? ‘Cause I can’t in my good conscience,” she said.
“I told you, if you want to worship a unicorn from a legal standpoint, have at it,” she argued. “I can respect your decision to live whatever way you want to. I don’t agree with it. I don’t say I respect it except that, God gave you a will. I don’t respect it. I don’t condone it. I’m not saying it’s OK. The difference is you over here are saying I have to worship a unicorn.”
She stressed that if she accepted the “unicorn,” which she equated with everything that goes against Christian values, she would be compromising God’s Word.
“What I’m saying is ‘no.’ I can’t come on for healing to the nation because right now I don’t see healing to the nation,” White said.
Lament begins around 1 hour 55-minute mark
