Evangelist regrets statements linking Trump critics to opponents of God
President ‘raised up by God,’ she said
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Pastor Paula White-Cain, a Florida-based evangelist and a spiritual adviser to President Donald Trump, said Saturday she regrets some of the televised statements she made last month that seemed to indicate those who oppose Mr. Trump are opposing God’s will.
Ms. White-Cain spoke on a panel discussion on modern charismatic Christian revivals at the annual conference of the Religion News Association.
She appeared in August on the television program of longtime broadcast evangelist Jim Bakker, in which she said Mr. Trump has “been raised up by God.”
She added at the time: “It is God that raises up a king, it is God that sets one down and so when you fight against the plan of God, you’re fighting against the hand of God.”
On Saturday, Ms. WhiteCain said her words were edited down from a three-hour interview and that she believes God places all persons in power, including Mr. Trump and his political opponent, former President Barack Obama.
In the panel discussion and a follow-up meeting with reporters, Ms. WhiteCain spoke in measured, subdued tones in contrast to her exuberant presentation on Mr. Bakker’s show. “I was fired up that day,” she said Saturday. She said she’ll be more cautious in the future. “Lesson learned.”
“It was honestly something that I walked into,” she said. “I’m learning this role that I’m serving” as part of an inner circle of Mr. Trump’s spiritual advisers.
The group has come under sharp criticism from other religious and nonreligious voices for what they call an overly uncritical support for the president. Some fault them for sticking with the president when other advisers broke with him following his post-Charlottesville comments seeming to equate the moral standing of some in the white-supremacist march with some of their opponents. Some of Mr. Trump’s advisers say they can do more good with access to him, and Ms. WhiteCain affirmed her belief that Mr. Trump is not racist.
She said her comments on “The Jim Bakker Show” were in a broader context of prayer and denied that she said it was opposing God to oppose Mr. Trump.
“In our own personal life, we find ourselves fighting against the hand of God, and I believe that we can be a very rebellious and stubborn people individually, nationally, corporately,” she said Saturday.
At another point on the TV show last month, she said, “We were sent here to take over.” On Saturday, she denied she was referring to a theocracy in the United States.
Rather, she said: the church’s mission is “bringing the presence of God and a relationship with the Lord. We’re the institute that brings forth true transformation into the hearts of humanity.”