What has Trump’s White House Faith Office leader said about LGBTQ+ people?

Controversial Florida televangelist and megachurch pastor Paula White-Cain, who supposedly speaks in tongues, has called the Black Lives Matter movement the “anti-Christ”, and been labelled a “heretic” by some Christians, has been named as the leader of the new White House faith office.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday (7 February), to create the faith office whose mission is to “assist faith-based entities, community organisations and houses of worship in their efforts to strengthen American families, promote work and self-sufficiency, and protect religious liberty”.

The previous day, following the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC, Trump signed a separate executive order in which he pledged to “eradicate anti-Christian bias”, thereby aiming to “protect the religious freedoms of Americans and end the anti-Christian weaponisation of government”. Trump claimed that the previous administration had “engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offences”, despite that the fact that president Joe Biden is a devout Catholic.

Trump also repeated the false claim that “the Biden Administration declared 31 March 2024, Easter Sunday, as Transgender Day of Visibility”. The two days just happened to fall on the same date last year.

Transgender Day of Visibility is always held on 31 March and Easter can take place on any Sunday between 22 March and 22 April.

During his address at the prayer breakfast, Trump said his administration “will bring our country back together as one nation under God” and stop “all forms of anti-Christian targeting and discrimination within the federal government”.

White-Cain was part of Trump’s Evangelical Advisory Board during his first successful campaign for the presidency.

“I have been appointed to lead the White House Faith Office,” she wrote on X/Twitter. “The office will work alongside attorney general Pam Bondi to combat discrimination against Christians in federal institutions and ensure religious liberties are upheld across the country.”

Who is Paula White-Cain?

White-Cain, 58, is an evangelical Christian who has been married three times. Her current husband is Journey band member Jonathan Cain. She is a proponent of prosperity theology, which effectively promotes the notion that if followers donate cash to her church, God will reward them in a variety of ways.

She converted to Christianity at the Damascus Church of God in 1984 while living in Maryland.

In 1991, she and second husband Randy White founded the Tampa Christian Center, which was later renamed the Without Walls International Church. Following the pair’s divorce in 2007, she became the senior pastor.

In 2011, White-Cain took up the same role at the New Destiny Christian Church in Apopka, Florida, leaving eight years later.

She is the founder and president of Paula White Ministries, as well as president of the National Faith Advisory Board and the City of Destiny.

Why is she so controversial?

White-Cain is controversial figure, even among hard-line Christians because she claims to speak in tongues and urges people to donate to her church in order to receive help from God. The donation page on her website has at least five different ways people can send money.

A video of her during an emergency prayer session on 5 November 2020 – the day of the presidential election – fighting “demonic confederacies” in order to secure Trump’s re-election went viral, notably for her high-speed preaching and garbled speech.

Many notable Christian figures have described her as “heretical” and “false”.

Christian motivational speaker Scott Ross wrote on X that her appointment was “an abomination” and that she is “no Christian leader”.

He went on to say: “She preaches the heresies of word of faith and prosperity gospel, both utterly opposed to authentic Christianity. Worse, she has lived a life of scandal, with multiple husbands, twisting the gospel for profit.

“Arguably, this is the worst and most dangerous thing President Trump has done: putting a false teacher at the helm of faith outreach. Lord have mercy on our country and this administration.”

Meanwhile, Christian podcast host John Mason branded her “a known heretic and known false teacher who has no regard for the gospel of Jesus Christ”.

Christian rapper Shai Linne has also referred to White-Cain as a false teacher.

White-Cain has called on members of her congregation to pray for the miscarriage of “all Satanic pregnancies”. In 2020, saying her comment had been taken out of context, she wrote on social media: “I was praying Ephesians 6:12 that we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Anything that has been conceived by demonic plans, for it to be cancelled and not prevail in your life.”

What has White-Cain said about the LGBTQ+ community?

Last March, she wrote on X: “The White House issued a formal proclamation recognising today, our Easter Sunday, as Transgender Day Of Visibility. They quickly found out it offended masses of Christians, people of faith, who are the backbone of this country and it moved them to swift action voicing their commitment to fight harder than ever before for those who support their values, fight for their freedoms and certainly recognise their most holy sacred day.

“Thank you President Trump who quickly responded to the Biden Administration to issue an apology, which they did not.”

In June, she spoke out against government rules which call for LGBTQ+ youngsters in foster care to be placed in safe and affirming homes.

She told the Faith & Freedom Conference: “This administration has put out memos and wordage that says basically if you do not teach and train on an LGBTQ agenda, if you do not nurture with that, then you are a hostile environment that is not worthy to be able to adopt or be a foster parent.

“At the end of the day it is an attack upon our faith, upon our beliefs, on Christianity, upon every person of faith. I believe there are people in this room who are going to say: ‘Come on devil, we’ve had enough, no more, we’re drawing the line here’… We are not wrestling against flesh and blood but against principalities, powers, wickedness and darkness. This is an ideology against God, against our faith and against our right.”

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