Trump’s Spiritual Adviser Paula White Is Using the Coronavirus Crisis to Bankroll Her Church
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin warned senators that the outbreak of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and the massive recession that likely will take place might cause the unemployment rate to balloon to 20 percent. (He later walked back that dire prediction.) The same day, the president’s spiritual adviser, Paula White asked her followers for private donations to bankroll her private church, which she described as a “hospital to the sick”—the metaphysically sick, that is.
Since October, White has served as the special adviser to the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives in the Trump Administration. During a coronavirus-themed “prayer session” that she delivered to her online congregation, she conflated the coronavirus outbreak—a quickly-spreading pandemic which has infected more than 6,000 Americans and by Wednesday had killed 14 6 —with the fundraising needs of the City of Destiny , an Apokpa, Florida, church in which she holds a prominent position.
Though she clarified that donations wouldn’t actually go to help those infected, White used medical imagery to add urgency to her fundraising plea during a pandemic. “Every single day we are a hospital to the sick, not necessarily the physically sick,” she said. “But we are a hospital for those who are soul sick, those who are spiritually sick.” White went on to suggest that contributors offer a $91 donation, citing Psalm 91 , or “maybe $9 or whatever God tells you to do.”
White’s career as a religious figure has long featured the solicitation of money from followers in exchange for her intervention in expediting their access to God—money that has gone on to finance her lucrative lifestyle. As Mother Jones’ Stephanie Mencimer reported in February:
“A Senate report found that White’s personal ministry and the church she ran with her now ex-husband used tax-exempt ministry funds to pay nearly $900,000 one year for the Whites’ waterfront mansion. It paid over a million dollars in salaries to family members and kept the Whites in the air with a private jet. White and her church refused to cooperate with the investigation and in 2011, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), issued a report outlining the committee’s findings but took no other action.”
Now from Trump’s pulpit—a ripe opportunity for more lucrative gains—White’s financial requests are more visible than ever. Plus, they’re wrapped in the implicit endorsement by the president by virtue of her close association to him. As Mencimer wrote:
The melding of White’s public and private jobs is nearly seamless, as she invokes her relationship with Trump in her sermons and fundraising pitches, even as she wields her spiritual authority to defend the president. But experts say the arrangement raises significant conflict of interest questions, concerns about her compliance with tax laws banning nonprofit churches from endorsing candidates. And there’s the more fundamental question as to whether by installing her in a White House job, Trump has put the government’s stamp of approval on a religious ministry that includes faith healing and preying on vulnerable people for money.
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One thing is clear: The donations that White is soliciting won’t be heading towards the real hospitals serving those in need at the frontline of the coronavirus pandemic.
As churches have made the hard choice of suspending services, churchgoing Americans should continue to send their tithes as ministries are playing a vital role in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, Vice President Mike Pence said at a White House press briefing Saturday.
Americans are responding to the novel coronavirus pandemic with “common sense, compassion and generosity,” Pence said and praised religious leaders and faith communities for their continued service.
“Making the hard choice to suspend services, to have online services, even while those ministries are continuing to support food banks and come alongside of the most vulnerable,” he said.
“And of course the chorus of prayers that is coming up from communities of faith around the country is making the difference that it always has in the life of this nation.”
He and President Donald Trump had promised to “remind people that on the weekends that you’re not in the pews, it’s still a good idea, if you can, to go ahead and make that donation.” He explained that “all the ministries are continuing to play a vital role in our communities and we encourage your continued support.”
This is the real administration position on the issue.
Spam. You already posted this on your pence/tithing article.
Nor did he answer the question? Should her believers continue to give to her church?
...or perhaps he did answer the question.
Turning her into a pillar of salt is a good bet. Although I would prefer her being turned into a cow patty which is much more fitting.
If she were salt in a shaker, people would be giving salt up.
Another charlatan....she should be shut down like the rest of them.
She gives religion a bad name.
She has a tiny fraction of the wealth of the Catholic Church.
We are supposed to a nation of separation of religion and government yet Trump has her living in the WH (probably rent free) and allows her to run her con games from there. She is like that other religious con preacher who took in people from Katrina, people who lost everything, and still passed around collection plates.
I don't understand the thinking of those who preach to still give to the churches, when many of them can't even afford food for their family at this point due to loss of their jobs or illness of their bread winner.
If that is what their god still expects under such circumstances, then I am so very glad their god is not the deity I believe in. As their god obviously loves money far more than those he professes to care so much about.
The deity I believe in does not require anyone to pay to pray.
Any 'nekked' pictures of Ms. White out there?
No biggie with Paula White 'soliciting' money from the weak and insipid. After all, that is what hucksters are for and that is why the weak and insipid exist.