Reopening the White House Faith Office

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

A new faith advisor at the White House.

During the annual National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month, President Trump made this announcement.

TRUMP: This week I'm also creating the White House Faith office led by Pastor Paula White who is so amazing.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: How will the Faith Office work, and what does the televangelist Paula White-Cain bring to the White House?

Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta has the story.

CAROLINA LUMETTA: For more than two decades, the executive branch of the U.S. government has had an office that works with religious groups.

BUSH: Faith-based organizations should be allowed to receive federal grants when it comes to helping people in need.

In 2001, President George W. Bush established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The goal was for federal agencies to engage with religious and nonprofit organizations on issues like disaster relief and workforce development.

BUSH: What government can do is to recognize its limitations and more significantly recognize the power of faith in our society and that is what this initiative does, we don’t pick religions. We don’t fund religion. But we welcome the soldiers of the armies of compassion.

Every president since then has had some sort of liaison to religious groups, though President Trump left the office vacant for the first few years of his previous term. This time, he’s making it a priority…with some updates.

Trump shortened the name of the faith-based and neighborhood partnerships office to simply, the White House Faith Office. And for the first time ever, it will get space inside the West Wing. Its leader? The famous televangelist Paula White-Cain.

WHITE-CAIN: If we don't get religious liberty right it is the bedrock which all of our other freedoms fall upon.

White-Cain has been a personal faith adviser to the Trump family for more than 20 years, after Trump discovered her while watching TV. Here they are together at the National Faith Advisory Board summit last fall.

TRUMP: We've had them at the White House a lot of the pastors and respected people I recognize a lot of them just originally by just seeing them on television for so many years right including you.

WHITE: I was going to say people don't realize that that we met literally you were watching television and called me out of the blue and I'll never forget you said um ‘you've got the it factor’ and I said ‘oh sir we call that the anointing’ and that was our hello [applause]

White-Cain led the faith-based partnerships office during Trump’s first term, after he reopened it in 2019. During the fallout from the 2020 election, she claimed demonic forces were stealing the presidency from Trump. She’s been affiliated with the Word of Faith Movement, teaching that Christians can declare things like money, success, or holiness into existence because they have a portion of God’s divinity. She says she teaches a provision gospel, and denies teaching a prosperity or “health and wealth” gospel. Here she is on another televangelism program in 2019:

WHITE: You just seasonally need to be obedient whether it's a hundred thousand whether it's ten thousand dollars… I'm telling you there's a Department of Treasury in heaven that God is watching over everything you do and you are storing up eternal treasures that will go so far beyond I think that we can even begin to imagine.

White-Cain’s role in the White House worries some Christians…including Justin Peters, a Montana-based evangelist. Raised Southern Baptist, he’s now a traveling preacher who has created a curriculum to rebut the Word of Faith movement.

PETERS: And she tells people to sow money into her ministry, sow seed so they can reap a harvest. She's using scripture to exploit the poor, the sick, the desperate, and the widows for her own personal financial gain.

Peters voted for Trump in each of the past three presidential elections. He says he aligns with White politically but disputes her theology.

PETERS: My first and foremost concern is the purity of the gospel to a watching world. I would gladly undergo persecution from the government as long as the gospel of Jesus Christ is not distorted.

Others support White-Cain’s return to Washington. Pastor Samuel Rodriguez Jr. worked as a faith liaison for Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump. He’s now president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

RODRIGUEZ: Pastor Paula was the leader. She convenes the troops, she gathers the team, she's the quarterback, we're on the field, and we execute accordingly… and she and she has brought in others outside the evangelical world including rabbis and Catholic bishops.

Rodriguez also credits White-Cain with helping boost President Trump’s support among evangelicals.

RODRIGUEZ: President Trump was able to gain close to 80% his first time around, and now 84% to 87%, according to which exit poll you read, the second time around.

So what will the faith-office focus on this time? During the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump said he directed White-Cain to work with the Justice Department on a new executive order to eradicate anti-Christian bias.

TRUMP: The task force will work to fully prosecute anti-christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move Heaven and Earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.

During the Biden administration, pro-life Christians who prayed in front of abortion centers received multi-year prison sentences for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Some also point to church closures during the pandemic and denial of religious exemptions for federal vaccine mandates as examples of anti-Christian discrimination.

SASSER: The Biden administration, they took great pleasure in sort of putting the screws to religious liberty. But it's a new sheriff in town, right?

That’s Hiram Sasser, the executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, a conservative group that provides legal representation for religious liberty cases.

SASSER: We're very happy to see some acknowledgement that yes, indeed, even though it's the majority religion, there's still an anti-religious bias to people of the Christian faith, just as there is an anti-religious bias to people of other faiths.

The White House Faith Office is meant to help all religious groups communicate with agencies and receive equal access to federal grants. But most of Trump’s comments on it so far have revolved around Christianity. Michael Wear worked in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships during the Obama administration.

WEAR: There are important efforts that can be made to address the stigmatizing of religion broadly and that can be inclusive of Christians. I think the sense that this administration has the authority or the trust to do so in a way that does more good than harm I think is something that I personally question.

But Sasser argues that combating bias against Christianity boosts all religious expression.

SASSER: Here's the great thing about religious liberty is that a win for one of us is a win for all of us. It's a rising tide that floats all ships. And it's just great to have a White House that's fighting for us instead of against us.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It:

A new faith advisor at the White House.

During the annual National Prayer Breakfast earlier this month, President Trump made this announcement.

TRUMP: This week I'm also creating the White House Faith office led by Pastor Paula White who is so amazing.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: How will the Faith Office work, and what does the televangelist Paula White-Cain bring to the White House?

Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta has the story.

CAROLINA LUMETTA, REPORTER: For more than two decades, the executive branch of the U.S. government has had an office that works with religious groups.

BUSH: Faith-based organizations should be allowed to receive federal grants when it comes to helping people in need.

In 2001, President George W. Bush established the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. The goal was for federal agencies to engage with religious and nonprofit organizations on issues like disaster relief and workforce development.

BUSH: What government can do is to recognize its limitations and more significantly recognize the power of faith in our society and that is what this initiative does, we don’t pick religions. We don’t fund religion. But we welcome the soldiers of the armies of compassion.

Every president since then has had some sort of liaison to religious groups, though President Trump left the office vacant for the first few years of his previous term. This time, he’s making it a priority…with some updates.

Trump shortened the name of the faith-based and neighborhood partnerships office to simply, the White House Faith Office. And for the first time ever, it will get space inside the West Wing. Its leader? The famous televangelist Paula White-Cain.

WHITE-CAIN: If we don't get religious liberty right it is the bedrock which all of our other freedoms fall upon.

White-Cain has been a personal faith adviser to the Trump family for more than 20 years, after Trump discovered her while watching TV. Here they are together at the National Faith Advisory Board summit last fall.

TRUMP: We've had them at the White House a lot of the pastors and respected people I recognize a lot of them just originally by just seeing them on television for so many years right including you.

WHITE: I was going to say people don't realize that that we met literally you were watching television and called me out of the blue and I'll never forget you said um ‘you've got the it factor’ and I said ‘oh sir we call that the anointing’ and that was our hello [applause]

White-Cain led the faith-based partnerships office during Trump’s first term, after he reopened it in 2019. During the fallout from the 2020 election, she claimed demonic forces were stealing the presidency from Trump. She’s been affiliated with the Word of Faith Movement, teaching that Christians can declare things like money, success, or holiness into existence because they have a portion of God’s divinity. She says she teaches a provision gospel, and denies teaching a prosperity or “health and wealth” gospel. Here she is on another televangelism program in 2019:

WHITE: You just seasonally need to be obedient whether it's a hundred thousand whether it's ten thousand dollars… I'm telling you there's a Department of Treasury in heaven that God is watching over everything you do and you are storing up eternal treasures that will go so far beyond I think that we can even begin to imagine.

White-Cain’s role in the White House worries some Christians…including Justin Peters, a Montana-based evangelist. Raised Southern Baptist, he’s now a traveling preacher who has created a curriculum to rebut the Word of Faith movement.

PETERS: And she tells people to sow money into her ministry, sow seed so they can reap a harvest. She's using scripture to exploit the poor, the sick, the desperate, and the widows for her own personal financial gain.

Peters voted for Trump in each of the past three presidential elections. He says he aligns with White politically but disputes her theology.

PETERS: My first and foremost concern is the purity of the gospel to a watching world. I would gladly undergo persecution from the government as long as the gospel of Jesus Christ is not distorted.

Others support White-Cain’s return to Washington. Pastor Samuel Rodriguez Jr. worked as a faith liaison for Presidents Bush, Obama, and Trump. He’s now president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

RODRIGUEZ: Pastor Paula was the leader. She convenes the troops, she gathers the team, she's the quarterback, we're on the field, and we execute accordingly… and she and she has brought in others outside the evangelical world including rabbis and Catholic bishops.

Rodriguez also credits White-Cain with helping boost President Trump’s support among evangelicals.

RODRIGUEZ: President Trump was able to gain close to 80% his first time around, and now 84% to 87%, according to which exit poll you read, the second time around.

So what will the faith-office focus on this time? During the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump said he directed White-Cain to work with the Justice Department on a new executive order to eradicate anti-Christian bias.

TRUMP: The task force will work to fully prosecute anti-christian violence and vandalism in our society and to move Heaven and Earth to defend the rights of Christians and religious believers nationwide.

During the Biden administration, pro-life Christians who prayed in front of abortion centers received multi-year prison sentences for violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Some also point to church closures during the pandemic and denial of religious exemptions for federal vaccine mandates as examples of anti-Christian discrimination.

SASSER: The Biden administration, they took great pleasure in sort of putting the screws to religious liberty. But it's a new sheriff in town, right?

That’s Hiram Sasser, the executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, a conservative group that provides legal representation for religious liberty cases.

SASSER: We're very happy to see some acknowledgement that yes, indeed, even though it's the majority religion, there's still an anti-religious bias to people of the Christian faith, just as there is an anti-religious bias to people of other faiths.

The White House Faith Office is meant to help all religious groups communicate with agencies and receive equal access to federal grants. But most of Trump’s comments on it so far have revolved around Christianity. Michael Wear worked in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships during the Obama administration.

WEAR: There are important efforts that can be made to address the stigmatizing of religion broadly and that can be inclusive of Christians. I think the sense that this administration has the authority or the trust to do so in a way that does more good than harm I think is something that I personally question.

But Sasser argues that combating bias against Christianity boosts all religious expression.

SASSER: Here's the great thing about religious liberty is that a win for one of us is a win for all of us. It's a rising tide that floats all ships. And it's just great to have a White House that's fighting for us instead of against us.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta.

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