{"id":38885,"date":"2020-11-07T10:00:20","date_gmt":"2020-11-07T10:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=38885"},"modified":"2020-11-07T10:00:20","modified_gmt":"2020-11-07T10:00:20","slug":"preaching-for-trump-how-a-spiritual-advisor-went-viral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/preaching-for-trump-how-a-spiritual-advisor-went-viral\/","title":{"rendered":"Preaching for Trump: How a spiritual advisor went viral"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Speaking in tongues and chanting for spirits to help President Donald Trump\u2019s re-election is Twitter\u2019s new flavour of the week: Paula White.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prominently known as the spiritual advisor to Trump, Paula White-Cain, 54, is an American author, televangelist and preacher for her own ministries located in Apopka, Florida.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In her <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AUmMUmLYT1Y&amp;ab_channel=EntertainmentToday\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">most recent viral video<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, which was streamed\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\">from a church service at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/cityofdestiny.us\/\">City of Destiny<\/a>\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">on Facebook Live Wednesday night, White demanded \u201cangelic reinforcement\u201d from Africa and allowed the holy ghost of God to rush through her as she spoke in tongues &#8212; similar to that ultra-hyper church service Bill Skarsgard attended in <\/span><a style=\"font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Oxygen-Sans, Ubuntu, Cantarell, 'Helvetica Neue', sans-serif\" href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt7395114\/\">The Devil All the Time<\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Born in Mississippi in 1966, White\u2019s troubled youth began after her parents separated and her father committed suicide in the subsequent years that followed.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Let&#39;s all take a moment to check in with Donald Trump&#39;s spiritual advisor Paula White <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/nwv6f5dSfD\">pic.twitter.com\/nwv6f5dSfD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Scott Stedman (indefinite hiatus) (@ScottMStedman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ScottMStedman\/status\/1324181529661120513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 5, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Enduring sexual abuse after physical abuse while in poverty and parental alcoholism, White found her religious awakening at 18 years old,\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/usaunify.org\/liberalresistance\/paula-white-televangelist-and-trump-spiritual-advisor\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">saying<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: \u201cThe Lord gave me a vision that every time I opened my mouth and declared the Word of the Lord, there was a manifestation of His Spirit where people were either healed, delivered, or saved. When I shut my mouth, they fell off into utter darkness and God spoke to me and said \u2018I called you to preach the gospel.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">White, who owns a multimillion-dollar home as well as a private jet, is a champion of the controversial religious belief that claims an abundance of material wealth is an indicator of being in God\u2019s good graces called\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/identities\/2017\/9\/1\/15951874\/prosperity-gospel-explained-why-joel-osteen-believes-prayer-can-make-you-rich-trump\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">prosperity theology<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> This is an especially popular theory amongst televangelists.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 2011, White and her husband were <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/news-and-politics\/2017\/05\/trump-pastor-paula-white-has-bankruptcy-pretend-doctoral-history.html\">involved in a three-year investigation<\/a> by the Senate Finance Committe<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u00a0looking into possible misuse of tax exemptions related to churches and the misuse of donations at her former church, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tampabay.com\/news\/religion\/without-walls-says-it-has-settled-debts-and-is-moving-to-a-new-tampa\/2192500\/#:~:text=Last%20year%2C%20Without%20Wall's%20gross,million%2C%20according%20to%20bankruptcy%20documents.&amp;text=White%20also%20made%20%24800%2C000%20in,congregations%20in%20the%20United%20States.\">Without Wall<\/a>, which made about $40 million-a-year at its peak.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">After delivering the invocation at Trump\u2019s inauguration in 2017, <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">White was appointed to be the special advisor at the Office of Public Liaison for the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/executive-order-establishment-white-house-faith-opportunity-initiative\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Faith and Opportunity Initiative<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> two years later.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Listed in the top three of Orlando Magazine\u2019s &#8220;50 Most Powerful 2017: Philanthropy &amp; Community Voices,\u201d White comes in high demand across the country. She travels extensively to fulfill her <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/paulawhite.org\/about\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">mandated mission<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">: \u201cto transform lives, heal hearts, and show others the way to Jesus.\u201d It\u2019s curious she still reportedly has time to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/magazine\/she-led-trump-to-christ-the-rise-of-the-televangelist-who-advises-the-white-house\/2017\/11\/13\/1dc3a830-bb1a-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">visit the White House once a week<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Words: Maelina Hassel | Subbing: Connor O&#8217;Halloran<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Speaking in tongues and chanting for spirits to help President Donald Trump\u2019s re-election is Twitter\u2019s new flavour of the week: Paula White. Prominently known as the spiritual advisor to Trump, Paula White-Cain, 54, is an&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":38886,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38885"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38885\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38886"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}