Faith Office gains prominence under Trump

Nearly 25 years after President George W. Bush formed the Office of Faith Based Initiatives, President Donald Trump has elevated its profile, putting a famous televangelist in charge and giving her a West Wing office. The division has a new name, the White House Faith Office, and a new focus: eradicating anti-Christian bias. The mission has broad support among American Christians, though some of them question whether Trump’s appointed chief, Paula White-Cain, is the right person to lead it.

Trump announced the organization of the new White House Faith Office at the National Prayer Breakfast Gathering earlier this month.

“We will protect Christians in our schools, in our military, in our government, in our workplaces, hospitals, and in our public squares,” Trump said at the Washington Hilton. “Every nation with big dreams and great ambition has recognized that there is no recourse more precious than the faith and the hearts of our people.”

President George W. Bush created the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships in 2001 via executive order. It was part of his administration’s push to demonstrate compassionate conservatism, his philosophy that government should not solve every social problem but should help communities help themselves. The office met in a row home near the White House and worked on helping religious nonprofits apply for social service grants.

Every president since has kept up the office but with a different emphasis. During the Biden administration, the team worked on promoting vaccinations among faith communities and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. In each administration, the office has included leaders from several religions.

Michael Wear, president of the Center for Christianity and Public Life, served in the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships during the Obama administration.

“It has always been a purpose of the office in what the Bush administration referred to as leveling the playing field, making sure that faith-based groups had equal access to funding as nonprofits that were not faith-based,” Wear said.

Trump left the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships dormant for more than half of his first term. A few months after he announced his reelection campaign in 2019, he appointed White-Cain to lead the office and renamed it the Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiatives.

On the day he announced the formation of the Faith Office, Trump signed an executive order citing instances during the Biden administration when the FBI and Justice Department appeared to target pro-life Christians. The order references a rescinded FBI memo that referred to Catholic churches as domestic terrorism threats and several charges pressed against pro-life Christians who prayed in front of abortion centers and were convicted of violating the FACE Act. The order also listed the Biden administration’s recognition of a “Transgender Day of Visibility” as an example of anti-Christian bias. Trump is now creating a new DOJ task force to stop anti-Christian bias, and he’s directed the agency to work closely with the new Faith Office.

The executive order specifically highlighted anti-Christian bias, but the mandate for the White House Faith Office is broader. It directs White-Cain to compile a team of experts and leaders across several faith-based entities and to focus on anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and general anti-religious bias. The order highlights goals of “strengthening marriage and family,” “lifting up individuals through work and self-sufficiency,” and “promoting foster care and adoption programs.” Even though the order includes other faith traditions, Wear is concerned that Trump’s public comments only focus on Christianity.

“There are real issues to address here. Saying that you’re only going to address them for Christians and then doing so in such a robustly political way, it has some potential repercussions that could not just harm politics but also harm the perception of Christianity itself in this country,” Wear said. “The real danger of the faith office being oriented around protecting Christians is that the American people might get the idea that protecting Christians is Christians’ top priority.”

Sam Rodriguez Jr., president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, has worked in a White House faith liaison office for every president since its creation except for Biden. He said an overt Christian focus is needed in Trump’s second term.

“This is our cultural, political, spiritual, moral, mitochondrial, Judeo-Christian value system,” Rodriguez said. “This is not exclusively about Christians, but so goes the Christian community, so goes the rest of the faith communities.”

White-Cain has advised Trump since his first term in office. Even before winning election in 2016, Trump promised White-Cain a position as his faith director after she predicted that he would become president. During Trump’s first term, she held prayer sessions in which she declared an end to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. After the 2020 election, she hosted emergency prayer sessions in which she claimed Trump won reelection and that demonic forces were attempting to steal it from him.

Since the last Trump administration, White-Cain has led Paula White Ministries, which includes a church and outreach center at a Florida site she calls the City of Destiny. She has also served on Trump’s National Faith Advisory Board. During a summit of the advisory board last fall, she told Trump that it was God’s desire for him to save the nation by winning the presidential election.

White-Cain denies that she preaches a prosperity gospel, but she has been affiliated with the Word of Faith Movement, which teaches that Christians are guaranteed financial success as long as they declare it through prayer.

“She ticks off all the boxes of how to discern a false prophet or teacher,” Montana-based evangelist Justin Peters told WORLD. Peters is a traveling preacher who speaks out against prosperity gospel teachings. “Politically, I align with Paula White. But she’s not representative of Biblical Christianity, so my concern is the distorted view of the gospel and the distorted Christian witness that she will be to a watching world.”

Peters cited instances during her televised programs when White-Cain referenced a verse and then implored viewers to donate a dollar amount that corresponded to the chapter and verse citation in order to receive a blessing. He also said that he does not believe the Bible permits women to serve in preaching roles but would disagree with her theology even if she were a man.

“I’m not upset at Trump for nominating her to be in this position,” Peters said. “As much as I appreciate his policies, Donald Trump is no theologian and he doesn’t understand the nuances of the word of faith movement, the prosperity gospel.”

Rodriguez ascribes to a Pentecostal theology, which promotes belief in contemporary miracles, speaking in tongues, and prophecy. He said that during the first Trump administration White-Cain gathered leaders from across several faith spectrums, including from Judaism and Catholicism.

In addition to other televangelists, faith leaders like Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church of Dallas have expressed support for White-Cain. Jeffress endorsed a book she published in 2019 and disputed characterizations that it promoted prosperity gospel. Franklin Graham of Samaritan’s Purse also endorsed the book and praised White-Cain’s position in the White House. Former Southern Baptist Convention President Jack Graham (no relation to Franklin Graham) attended White’s faith summit last fall and prayed over Trump.

Rodriguez says that White’s position in the Trump administration marks a turning point for evangelicalism.

“There’s some angst because part of the evangelical world does not believe women can be pastors. The other part of the angst is that she comes from the charismatic community, which is not something easily palpable to segments of the evangelical community,” Rodriguez said. “But at the end of the day, we should be joyous of the fact that with her, 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.”

According to a fall VoteCast survey, AP found that 8 in 10 people who self-describe as evangelical Christians supported Trump in the election. The community as a whole composes roughly 20% of the electorate.