NY Times: White House Of Worship — Christian Prayer Rings Out Under Trump

New York Times, White House of Worship: Christian Prayer Rings Out Under Trump:

A cappella hymns rising in the Roosevelt Room.

Prayer “in Jesus’ name” proclaimed from the Cabinet Room.

Hands stretching out in the Oval Office, as pastors invoke Bible passages about how kings are established by God.

From the moment Donald J. Trump was re-elected to the presidency, his conservative Christian supporters have rejoiced in a second chance for their values to have power. And now, week after week, scenes like these are taking place at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as they seize on this opportunity.

Routinely, and often at Mr. Trump’s enthusiastic direction, senior administration officials and allied pastors are infusing their brand of Christian worship into the workings of the White House itself, suggesting that his campaign promise to “bring back Christianity” is taking tangible root.

The result at times is an atmosphere inside the White House of a president operating with a divine mission. Amid his administration’s combative postures on issues of economic tariffs, drastic cuts to foreign aid and immigrant deportations, there is an enduring sense among many of his Christian supporters that Mr. Trump miraculously survived an assassination attempt last summer to remake America.

Mr. Trump is not known to attend church regularly, and at times in the past he has sounded ignorant of Christian language and beliefs. But after the assassination attempt, Mr. Trump said he had been saved from death by “the grace of almighty God.”

To his supporters’ particular delight, Mr. Trump’s new White House Faith Office has physical office space in the prized real estate of the West Wing. Evangelical leaders say they have increased proximity to Mr. Trump, even compared with his first administration, when they enjoyed a place of prominence.

“This is a different reality,” said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, who prayed for Mr. Trump in the Oval Office with a group in March. “It comes with unprecedented access and an unparalleled commitment to affirming our Judeo-Christian value system.”

The faith office is led by Mr. Trump’s longtime personal pastor, Paula White-Cain, and Jennifer Korn, who worked in the first Trump administration. ...

Ms. White-Cain and Ms. Korn emphasized that the faith office exists to support religious freedom for people of all faiths. The White House has hosted an iftar, where Mr. Trump thanked Muslims for their support in November. The faith office also held a Passover event on Thursday.

The executive order establishing the new office says it is devoted to “combating antisemitic, anti-Christian, and additional forms of anti-religious bias.” The office has promised pastors an ambitious agenda, including ending what it sees as Christian persecution in America and to end the prevailing belief that church and state should be separated. ...

So far, their work elevating the place of Christianity has the boldest representation. On Monday, the White House unveiled a weeklong Easter celebration unlike any religious observance in the White House in recent memory. On Sunday, Mr. Trump opened the Easter festivities with a statement Ms. White-Cain referred to as a “proclamation.”

“This Holy Week, Melania and I join in prayer with Christians celebrating the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” the statement begins, referring to Jesus as “the living Son of God who conquered death, freed us from sin, and unlocked the gates of Heaven for all of humanity.”

Mr. Trump envisioned the scale of the Holy Week celebrations as a direct rebuttal to former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Ms. White-Cain said. Last year, Easter Sunday fell on March 31, which is also celebrated annually as Transgender Day of Visibility. Mr. Biden issued statements that day commemorating both occasions, sparking swift reactions from Christians who oppose transgender rights.

“To wake up on the most holy day and declare it as Transgender Visibility Day, that struck a nerve,” Ms. White-Cain said. Mr. Trump, then a candidate, called her soon afterward to sketch out a plan. “We’re going to do something really big for Easter, really big,” she recalled Mr. Trump as saying. “He wanted this.”

Wall Street Journal, A Televangelist Finds Herself at Home in Trump’s White House:

Paula White, a longtime friend of the president, mixes prayer, politics and fundraising for her ministry; ‘We pray for God to use him.’

In March, six weeks after President Trump appointed her to lead his White House Faith Office and set her up with an office in the West Wing, evangelical Christian leader Paula White preached in a YouTube sermon that the Passover-to-Easter period provided the faithful with an opportunity to receive “seven supernatural blessings.” 

“God will assign an angel to you,” she said. “He’ll be an enemy to your enemies. He’ll give you prosperity.” Citing a verse from Exodus, she added that God also had decreed that “none shall appear before me empty-handed.”

The video then pivoted into fundraising mode, outlining a series of gifts for honoring God and supporting her ministry, culminating in a Waterford crystal cross for a “Passover/Easter resurrection offering of $1,000 or more.” Next came footage of Trump in the Oval Office lauding White’s ministry and political work. “You have helped us so much in so many different ways,” Trump said.

Over a four-decade career as a preacher and televangelist, the 58-year-old White has become both enormously influential and controversial in the evangelical world. Her 24-year friendship with Trump, which she said began when he called her after seeing her preach on a Florida TV station, has culminated in a role that combines religion and politics in ways that have little precedent in modern White House history.

In addition to advising the White House office set up to empower faith groups, White has repeatedly been photographed leading prayer sessions in which she and others—heads bowed and eyes closed—lay their hands on the president, including in the Oval Office.

In a recent interview about her work, she said that she and others were simply praying for Trump. “There will be some people that absolutely believe that he is chosen and he is anointed,” she said. “We pray for God to use him as he leads and guides his country and just makes critical decisions.” A White House spokeswoman said it is common for Christians to place their hands on one another when they pray. ...

There is nothing new about presidents inviting clergy into the White House for prayer and counsel. When George W. Bush was president, he pushed for religious organizations to play a bigger role in providing taxpayer-funded social services. He created what he called the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives to expand the opportunities for religious groups—the “armies of compassion,” he called them—to provide local services.

In the years since then, successor versions of that office have helped religious groups win federal grants and contracts for substance-abuse counseling, prisoner re-entry and other social services. In February, Trump rebranded it the White House Faith Office, and charged it more broadly with fighting perceived anti-Christian and other anti-religious bias. 

White brings a unique resume to the position. She has built a national profile preaching a strain of Christianity that holds that God can offer the faithful good health and prosperity. Some critics label such teaching the “prosperity gospel” for tying divine gifts to financial contributions—a label White and others reject. ...

Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has criticized the fundraising messages White delivers in appeals like the Passover-Easter sermon, calling her “a theological nutcase” who is “selling the promises of God in the guise of fundraising for a ministry.” 

Speaking recently on his podcast, Mohler, who supported Trump last year, said White’s strain of teaching “turns into a very manipulative theological system,” and that he was concerned about the number of Trump supporters who subscribe to it. ...

White brushes aside such criticism, saying she teaches that “God wants you to be what he designed you to be.” She cites her own story as an example of how faith overcomes adversity.

“I’m a grandma. I lost my father to suicide, I suffered abuse, I lived in poverty, I found faith,” she said. “And I also have to say, my entire ministry has been a woman in a man’s world. Not been easy. But all of these experiences arrive for a responsibility and a privilege to serve in this office

Christianity Today, All the President’s Pastors: Who’s Advising Trump?:

After Franklin Graham offered a prayer at the White House Easter dinner on Wednesday, he introduced President Donald Trump to a group that already knew him quite well.

“It feels so dumb to have to introduce the president of the United States in his own house,” he said from the podium, sparking laughter around the room. “What a privilege, isn’t it? To have the president of the United States invite us here?”

The crowd was made up of faith leaders, mostly conservative evangelicals and Catholics, whose grassroots support was central to Trump winning his second term. For many, it wasn’t their first time gathering to pray with the president, whose administration has touted an open-door policy for pastors.

The president hasn’t publicly attended a church service since his inauguration day, he doesn’t hold membership in a particular congregation or denomination, he’s gone back and forth over whether he needs to ask for God’s forgiveness, and he avoids speaking in detail about his personal devotional life, so what we know about Trump’s faith comes largely from the pastors around him at the White House—starting with Paula White-Cain.

White-Cain, a prosperity-preaching televangelist and Trump’s longtime spiritual adviser, has been an unofficial guide in introducing him to other faith leaders, gathering his coterie of 25 evangelical advisers during his first term and now leading the White House Faith Office, based in the West Wing.

White-Cain told Fox & Friends during Holy Week that the office has hosted “almost 500 faith leaders” since February. By Wednesday’s dinner, the count had grown: “We’ve actually had over 1,000 faith leaders in through the White House in just this short time period,” she said.

Trump’s White House no longer releases visitor logs, but photos of evangelical supporters praying and worshiping in the Oval Office, dozens at a time, make their way to social media.

Participants regularly tout the “opportunity” and “honor” to be there and promote the administration’s Christian messaging to their followers. ...

[White-Cain] works alongside Jennifer Korn, who isn’t a pastor but directs the White House faith office. Whenever Korn meets with the president, she said, Trump asks her, “How are my pastors doing, how are my priests, how are my rabbis doing?”

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