Pandering to the low-information voters who comprise his evangelical base, Donald Trump, in 2018, established something called the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which was charged, among other things, with defending the religious liberty of America’s Christian majority. Not satisfied to let the stupidity end there, though, Donald Trump, this past Halloween, appointed his personal pastor, evangelical televangelist Paula White, to join his administration as an advisor to this all-important initiative. While it’s unclear what we are paying White, or what exactly she does for our government, other than coordinate ridiculous evangelical photo-ops for the President, and make comments about how his opponents “operate in sorcery and witchcraft,” one has to imagine that the exposure she’s gotten as a result of being at Trump’s side as he wages his war on the phrase “happy holidays” has increased her brand in evangelical circles, making it more likely that, when she says things like, “If you don’t send the money, you’ll never see sustainment in your life, and your dream will die,” that people will actually comply.
Far be it for me to accuse any self-proclaimed vessel of the Lord of being a charlatan. For all I know, Paula White is exactly the kind of person that our merciful and forgiving God would seek out here on earth to do his bidding… a thrice-married “family values” Republican twice investigated by Congress for taking money from the easily-manipulated under the auspices of the so-called “prosperity gospel” after having been taught the evangelical ropes by the “miracle” performing Benny Hinn. And, as if that’s not enough, she’s also got a lavish apartment in Trump Tower, and she’s married to Journey’s Jonathan Cain, the man who wrote Don’t Stop Believin’. Why would God choose a poor carpenter to speak for him, when he had someone like that, right?
Yeah, it does seem a little odd, but, again, who am I to say. God might have a sense of irony… But my intention right now isn’t to debate whether or not she’s a charlatan. Today, I want to discuss the content of her January 5, 2020 sermon, some of which was just released online… Here, for those of you who haven’t seen it, is what Paula White had to say from the pulpit.
This woman actually has an office in the White House. One wonders if she's coordinating her attack “against the marine kingdom” from there. And am I wrong that it seems kind of off brand for a pro-life evangelical to be praying for her enemies to "miscarry right now"? https://t.co/ZKRWQMiqms
— Mark Maynard (@MarkAMaynard) January 25, 2020
White, in her defense, says that all this talk of “satanic abortions” and our “marine” enemies was “taken out of context,” and I have no doubt that, among a certain group of self-professed “god warriors” and “QAnon acolytes, it makes all kinds of sense. But, as I’m kind of struggling to make heads or tails of it, I thought that I’d post it here, and ask you, my readers, to help me sort through it… Here’s the transcript.
Hey, hey. Hey, hey. Hey, hey. We interrupt that which has been deployed to hurt the church in this season, that which has been deployed to hurt this nation, in the name of Jesus. Forgive us! For our sins. Come on. I need you guys to pray. We cancel every surprise from the witchcraft in the marine kingdom. Any hex. Any spell. Any witchcraft. Any spirit of control. Any Jezebel. Anything the enemy desires through spells. Through witchcraft. Through any way that is manipulation. Demonic manipulation. We curse that. We break it, according to the word of God, in the name of Jesus. We come against the marine kingdom. We come agains the animal kingdom. The woman who rides upon the waters. We break the power. In the name of Jesus. And we declare that any strange winds, any strange winds that have been send to hurt the church, sent against this nation, sent against our President, sent against myself, sent against others. We break it by the superior blood of Jesus right now. In the name of Jesus, we arrest every infirmity, affliction, fatigue, weariness, weakness, fear, sickness, any self-righteousness, any self-serving action, God. Let pride fall. Let pride fall. Let pride fall. Let pride fall. In the name of Jesus. We command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now. We declare that anything that has been conceived in satanic wombs, that it’ll miscarry. It will not be able to carry forth any plan of destruction, any plan of harm.
Before I go on, I should say that I’m well aware of the time honored tradition among evangelicals of speaking-in-tongues, and I get that part of White’s job is to go off on riffs, exploring the outer edges of human consciousness like a jazz musician. I understand that’s part of the deal, but holy shit, this is some next-level stuff… “We come against the marine kingdom”? “We cancel every surprise from the witchcraft in the marine kingdom”? What the fuck is it with the marine kingdom? Other people, understandably, are caught up in the “satanic womb” stuff, but I’m really most curious about what she thinks is going on in our oceans. If anyone has any ideas, let me know, OK? Are there demonic porpoises that I need to be aware of?
With that said, I too “command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now.” We’ve got enough going on right now without any Rosemary’s Baby type shit.
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And, yes, I get that when she’s talking about the “satanic womb” she’s employing some kind of metaphor for evil plans being incubated by the enemies of god, Donald Trump, etc… but it’s still seriously nuts. And I cannot believe that our tax dollars are enabling this kind of next-level insanity. Just imagine if someone in the Obama Administration, like Van Jones, had been caught on take talking about our enemies living in the ocean, and how we had to purge their satanic wombs.
My longstanding hatred of Journey has been validated.
I once saw Steve Perry in full mullet buying coffee in Mill Valley CA. He wore a tennis visor with his bangs over the top. He looked like a tropical bird of some kind or one of those fancy chickens. Unrelated, but I felt his appearance that day was an apt visual representation of his song stylings.
I’m waiting for FF to come to Rev White’s defense again. Stop making fun of that serious biblical scholar and spiritual leader, Mark. I suspect he has a wee crush.
“The shameless voice of ignorant liberal thought/propaganda that arose out of a regional bubble that insulated the college-educated, brainwashed, susceptible to propaganda types from feeling the need that they needed to use reason.”— is how FF, defender of Rev White, described this blog earlier today.
FF and Rev White have some rhetorical flourish tendencies in common. Maybe that’s the attraction.
Jean is waiting for me to come to White’s defense from what exactly? What does the attack consist of? Defend her from Mark’s “low information” point of view which apparently has trouble identifying White and her congregation as part of a Southern Christian subculture that like all subcultures has unique metaphors and a divergent lexicon? Come on Columbo! It is not that they are all “nuts” it is that they are in conversation about something you do not understand. I know little about her/their subculture but it seems pretty obvious that she is using metaphors about good and evil. Underworld/ Underwater maybe? Columbo? The miscarriage thing is obvious metaphor….Jesus….
I feel little need to defend White. Although Columbo might feel the need to defend himself from basically behaving like a rube: “Them peoples is nuts. I never heard about them sorts of metaphor-thingies in Michigan. Not like that anyway. Y’all is freaks.”
I don’t want to gloat.
is this really a tough one for Trump supporters to see through? Notice a resemblance between Paula White and Stormy Daniels?
No Columbos here.
I don’t want to be rude, but I am a homicide investigator, not a vice cop.
Some explanation of the Charismatic Christian belief system that informs White’s language.
https://twitter.com/bsmee1/status/1221413211204988928?s=20
I actually appreciate charismatic religious practice and pretty much think the more spiritual practice harnesses the imagination and embraces iterative metaphor the better.
But let’s be clear here, FF. What White is doing is trying to encode her spiritual belief system into policy. And she is doing this by equating the left and liberalism with Satanism.
And that’s anti-American in the most basic sense. We exist as a country because people were seeking religious freedom. Religious freedom and its corollary separation of church and state are a founding principle. We are unique as a nation in this– both embracing of the spiritual and erecting firm boundaries re religious (or anti-religious) prescriptions by the state.
And White in calling one side Godly and the other side Satanic is promoting the exact kind of bigotry and bias that FF accuses Mark of (and which I think Mark was trying to point up with this post) It is also anti-American and anti-democratic. We persisted as a nation because we embraced pluralism and the need for many perspectives to create fair policy. Calling one side demonic is what we have been reduced to. But Rev. White is a promoter of it not a victim of it.
Liberalism can claim both Jesus and Satan, because we’re cool like that.
Well written. Great ideas! Application of those great ideas is hilariously bullshitty, unfortunately. Classical liberalism is dead amongst the modern Dems. Power. Good or evil does not matter. Power. End of story.
FF— I’m sorry you are in such a dark place. Must be hell.
Jean,
Your like minded liberal friends and those people you support are the ones who are in a very dark place. Just because you are unable to see it does not make you a bad person although it does feel like you might be guilty of some form of negligence….Maybe you are just misinformed? The truth is knocking very politely at your doors right now.
Aloha FF and JH
I think it much more likely she is a money grubbing charlatan out to grab as much cash from the forsaken and ignorant as she can. I suspect she also has some rich benefactors who benefit from keeping the masses in thralled to superstition and magic.
The fact that two highly educated folks like yourself do not see and call out this obvious reality explains a lot.
Aloha. Just turned on impeachment trial and there was Ken Starr lecturing on the evils of impeachment and how destabilizing they are and it seems like we live in the age of impeachment and how did we get here
Made me want to vomit
Wobblie,
But I am not weighing in on whether or not I think her views are orthodox, true, or even good. I am pointing out that it is not wise for Mark to admit his ignorance about the conversation she is in; while in the same breath pass judgment (arrogantly) about the very thing he just admitted he is ignorant about.
Wobblie— did I give you the impression I was letting Rev White off the hook?
Read again.
Asking that the spiritual be in any way rational may be the ultimate human folly.
And since it is inherently not worldly why would we ever want it anywhere near our policy decisions.
I’m all for spiritual practices that are as creative and freaky and full of wonder as our human interiority and imaginative capacity.
I don’t want policy made from that place,
I think ppl who believe money has anything to do with spirituality are very misguided, but it’s their money to waste I guess. I’m not going to stop folks from playing the lottery either.
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