Latest news with #Christian-dominated
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's top spiritual advisor visits Miami megachurch. She shares a prophecy
President Donald Trump's top spiritual advisor visited a southwest Miami-Dade County megachurch to outline a vision of a Christian-dominated world and urge believers, particularly Evangelicals, to help make it a reality. In a two-hour sermon on Thursday, Florida Pastor Paula White-Cain — a prominent televangelist and senior advisor to Trump in the newly established White House Faith Office — told a packed church at King Jesus Ministry, one of the largest megachurches in South Florida, that she was not merely preaching but prophesying. 'Can one person make a difference? You didn't come to fit in, you came to take over. You came to move in your Kingdom calling,' she said. 'That threatens people who don't understand the word of God because their language, their understanding is not like yours.' Blending Biblical scripture and personal stories, White-Cain spoke about God using ordinary people to spread the Gospel, save lost 'souls,' and achieve Christian 'dominion' by transforming society. 'God wants to use you to reposition society, your community, this nation, the world,' White-Cain said. 'Get ready because you're going to reap the greatest harvest mankind has ever known.' A translator echoed her every word in real time for the mostly Spanish-speaking audience sprinkled with visitors from South and Central America. Apostle Guillermo Maldonado, the church's founder, has a large international following, including many congregants with strongly conservative political and social values. Nationally, evangelical congregations ranked among the Republican president's most enthusiastic supporters — voting clout that has made White-Cain a powerful political influence in the White House. White-Cain appeared at King Jesus for a three-day spiritual conference called the 'Supernatural School of the Spirit,' where she headlined a string of local and visiting Christian leaders who preached, performed supernatural healings, and instructed crowds of followers and local pastors about how to 'walk in the supernatural' — a term used in some Christian circles referring to direct encounters with God and the Holy Spirit. 'Evangelism is the responsibility of every single christian. As a believer you cannot choose to ignore it. No way you can have an encounter with God and not care about the lost,' said White-Cain during a session that was aired live on the church's Facebook page. White-Cain — who is based in Apopka and married to Jonathan Cain, who played guitar and keyboard for the band Journey and is now part of the Christian music scene — is aligned with a movement of Christianity religious scholars call 'Independent Charismatic Christians,' a part of the New Apostolic Reformation. It blends Pentecostal practices with modern-day Evangelicalism, and its followers believe some leaders — like White-Cain and Maldonado — are apostles or prophets. The idea of achieving 'dominion' over the world and society is not uncommon in charismatic Christian theology, according to religious scholar Matthew Taylor, who studies Christian Nationalism. 'It holds that because God gave human beings 'dominion' over creation (Gen. 1:28), God must intend for human beings today to be active partners in ruling over the earth,' writes Taylor in his book 'The Violent Take it By Force.' Many charismatics, he writes, 'came to understand this as a present-day mandate to take over human societies so as to govern them according to God's reign.' White-Cain, a longtime supporter of Trump, has been credited for her skill at bringing views long considered extreme into the mainstream of conservative Christianity. Her Miami appearance echoed many familiar themes, preaching about God's dominion and transforming American values and culture. 'We're responsible to create culture. And that culture is a kingdom culture where you bring the heart of God into herding humanity,' White-Cain said during her sermon in Miami. White-Cain's personal story moved some in the church to tears as she shared tales of her tumultuous childhood and unlikely path to ministry. White, who grew up in Mississippi but eventually landed in Florida, emphasized that she didn't attend church until she was 18 years old and that she never imagined that she'd make it out of her abusive situation let alone into the White House. White-Cain has often spoken about her chaotic childhood — her father who had a gambling and drinking problem, died by suicide when she was just five-years-old, she says. In the fallout of her father's death, her mother struggled with alcoholism and before the age of thirteen, she endured years of sexual and physical abuse from babysitters and neighbors, according to a chapter on White-Cain in Taylor's book. In her Miami sermon, White-Cain talked about her journey from the trailer park as an 18-year-old single mother to preaching on television and ultimately, serving as a close spiritual advisor to President Trump. 'My story has nothing but brokenness, has nothing but ashes, but a great God can take what everyone else will give up on and say look what I can do,' she said. White-Cain also spoke at length about 'financial abundance' and preparing for a 'great harvest,' connecting the idea of giving financially to a spiritual revival. A key part of her message: in order to reap the rewards and feel God's glory, believers must first plant the seed and make a covenant with God. It was an appeal echoed in almost every church on Sunday to take out a checkbook or wallet but she urged congregants to dig deep. 'God's giving me revelation right now. Remember, glory only came when there was extravagant giving,' White-Cain said as QR codes flashed on the screens of the worship center, prompting people on how to donate. 'Stop holding yourselves back … Let God touch your heart for the harvest … Watch God extravagantly bless you … What you sow you grow. Obedience opens overflow. This is not historic. This is prophetic. God is getting ready to increase you.' White-Cain said she was moved to plant her own seed at King Jesus Ministries, pledging $12,000. She fetched her checkbook and wrote the donation live in front of thousands watching in person and at home. White-Cain didn't discuss specific issues like the administration's controversial crackdown on immigrants, many of them Hispanic. But she mentioned Trump a few times in her sermon on Thursday, telling the audience that her work was bigger than politics. 'This is not about Democrat or Republican or Independent. This is a moment that God opened up to be harvested,' she said. White-Cain said she has been close friends with the president for over 24 years. The relationship started when Trump called her one day out of the blue, she said, after he saw her preaching on TV and told her she had the 'it' factor. But, even before Trump called her, she said she had been praying for the president, and that she had added him to a list of ten people that she wanted the Lord to 'save.' 'When President Trump got back in, I knew that it was for America, but the Lord spoke to me and said it was for the nations,' White-Cain told the crowd. 'And the Lord has divinely aligned his people. That's you.' In 2020, she first gained broad national fame when one of her sermons at her church in Tampa went viral online. In it, she prayed forcefully, imploring God to give victory to Trump just one day after the presidential election was called for Joe Biden. During the prayers in the now-viral video, White was speaking in tongues, a practice that is commonly used by charismatic Christians who evoke ecstatic sounds that believers find to be a heavenly language. 'For every enemy that is aligned against you, let there be that we would strike the ground, for you will give us victory, God…. I hear a sound of victory. The Lord says, 'It is done,'' she said in that sermon.'We break and divide every demonic confederacy against the election, against America, against who you [God] have declared to be in the White House.' Her stance also drew criticism. As clips of White's intonations spread across the internet, people mocked the Florida pastor — arguing that Trump's Christian base was appearing more extreme, more unhinged by the day. 'Religious extremists like this is why we need to strengthen the separation between church and state!' wrote one online critic. Following Trump's latest victory, White-Cain became the first female clergy member to pray at a presidential inauguration and now serves as the first female primary spiritual adviser to a U.S. president. This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
Trump's top spiritual advisor visits Miami megachurch. She shares a prophecy
President Donald Trump's top spiritual advisor visited a southwest Miami-Dade County megachurch to outline a vision of a Christian-dominated world and urge believers, particularly Evangelicals, to help make it a reality. In a two-hour sermon on Thursday, Florida Pastor Paula White-Cain — a prominent televangelist and senior advisor to Trump in the newly established White House Faith Office — told a packed church at King Jesus Ministry, one of the largest megachurches in South Florida, that she was not merely preaching but prophesying. 'Can one person make a difference? You didn't come to fit in, you came to take over. You came to move in your Kingdom calling,' she said. 'That threatens people who don't understand the word of God because their language, their understanding is not like yours.' Blending Biblical scripture and personal stories, White-Cain spoke about God using ordinary people to spread the Gospel, save lost 'souls,' and achieve Christian 'dominion' by transforming society. 'God wants to use you to reposition society, your community, this nation, the world,' White-Cain said. 'Get ready because you're going to reap the greatest harvest mankind has ever known.' A translator echoed her every word in real time for the mostly Spanish-speaking audience sprinkled with visitors from South and Central America. Apostle Guillermo Maldonado, the church's founder, has a large international following, including many congregants with strongly conservative political and social values. Nationally, evangelical congregations ranked among the Republican president's most enthusiastic supporters — voting clout that has made White-Cain a powerful political influence in the White House. White-Cain appeared at King Jesus for a three-day spiritual conference called the 'Supernatural School of the Spirit,' where she headlined a string of local and visiting Christian leaders who preached, performed supernatural healings, and instructed crowds of followers and local pastors about how to 'walk in the supernatural' — a term used in some Christian circles referring to direct encounters with God and the Holy Spirit. 'Evangelism is the responsibility of every single christian. As a believer you cannot choose to ignore it. No way you can have an encounter with God and not care about the lost,' said White-Cain during a session that was aired live on the church's Facebook page. White-Cain — who is based in Apopka and married to Jonathan Cain, who played guitar and keyboard for the band Journey and is now part of the Christian music scene — is aligned with a movement of Christianity religious scholars call 'Independent Charismatic Christians,' a part of the New Apostolic Reformation. It blends Pentecostal practices with modern-day Evangelicalism, and its followers believe some leaders — like White-Cain and Maldonado — are apostles or prophets. The idea of achieving 'dominion' over the world and society is not uncommon in charismatic Christian theology, according to religious scholar Matthew Taylor, who studies Christian Nationalism. 'It holds that because God gave human beings 'dominion' over creation (Gen. 1:28), God must intend for human beings today to be active partners in ruling over the earth,' writes Taylor in his book 'The Violent Take it By Force.' Many charismatics, he writes, 'came to understand this as a present-day mandate to take over human societies so as to govern them according to God's reign.' White-Cain, a longtime supporter of Trump, has been credited for her skill at bringing views long considered extreme into the mainstream of conservative Christianity. Her Miami appearance echoed many familiar themes, preaching about God's dominion and transforming American values and culture. 'We're responsible to create culture. And that culture is a kingdom culture where you bring the heart of God into herding humanity,' White-Cain said during her sermon in Miami. Humble beginnings to the White House White-Cain's personal story moved some in the church to tears as she shared tales of her tumultuous childhood and unlikely path to ministry. White, who grew up in Mississippi but eventually landed in Florida, emphasized that she didn't attend church until she was 18 years old and that she never imagined that she'd make it out of her abusive situation let alone into the White House. White-Cain has often spoken about her chaotic childhood — her father who had a gambling and drinking problem, died by suicide when she was just five-years-old, she says. In the fallout of her father's death, her mother struggled with alcoholism and before the age of thirteen, she endured years of sexual and physical abuse from babysitters and neighbors, according to a chapter on White-Cain in Taylor's book. In her Miami sermon, White-Cain talked about her journey from the trailer park as an 18-year-old single mother to preaching on television and ultimately, serving as a close spiritual advisor to President Trump. 'My story has nothing but brokenness, has nothing but ashes, but a great God can take what everyone else will give up on and say look what I can do,' she said. White-Cain also spoke at length about 'financial abundance' and preparing for a 'great harvest,' connecting the idea of giving financially to a spiritual revival. A key part of her message: in order to reap the rewards and feel God's glory, believers must first plant the seed and make a covenant with God. It was an appeal echoed in almost every church on Sunday to take out a checkbook or wallet but she urged congregants to dig deep. 'God's giving me revelation right now. Remember, glory only came when there was extravagant giving,' White-Cain said as QR codes flashed on the screens of the worship center, prompting people on how to donate. 'Stop holding yourselves back … Let God touch your heart for the harvest … Watch God extravagantly bless you … What you sow you grow. Obedience opens overflow. This is not historic. This is prophetic. God is getting ready to increase you.' White-Cain said she was moved to plant her own seed at King Jesus Ministries, pledging $12,000. She fetched her checkbook and wrote the donation live in front of thousands watching in person and at home. A viral prayer for Trump White-Cain didn't discuss specific issues like the administration's controversial crackdown on immigrants, many of them Hispanic. But she mentioned Trump a few times in her sermon on Thursday, telling the audience that her work was bigger than politics. 'This is not about Democrat or Republican or Independent. This is a moment that God opened up to be harvested,' she said. White-Cain said she has been close friends with the president for over 24 years. The relationship started when Trump called her one day out of the blue, she said, after he saw her preaching on TV and told her she had the 'it' factor. But, even before Trump called her, she said she had been praying for the president, and that she had added him to a list of ten people that she wanted the Lord to 'save.' 'When President Trump got back in, I knew that it was for America, but the Lord spoke to me and said it was for the nations,' White-Cain told the crowd. 'And the Lord has divinely aligned his people. That's you.' In 2020, she first gained broad national fame when one of her sermons at her church in Tampa went viral online. In it, she prayed forcefully, imploring God to give victory to Trump just one day after the presidential election was called for Joe Biden. During the prayers in the now-viral video, White was speaking in tongues, a practice that is commonly used by charismatic Christians who evoke ecstatic sounds that believers find to be a heavenly language. 'For every enemy that is aligned against you, let there be that we would strike the ground, for you will give us victory, God…. I hear a sound of victory. The Lord says, 'It is done,'' she said in that sermon.'We break and divide every demonic confederacy against the election, against America, against who you [God] have declared to be in the White House.' Her stance also drew criticism. As clips of White's intonations spread across the internet, people mocked the Florida pastor — arguing that Trump's Christian base was appearing more extreme, more unhinged by the day. 'Religious extremists like this is why we need to strengthen the separation between church and state!' wrote one online critic. Following Trump's latest victory, White-Cain became the first female clergy member to pray at a presidential inauguration and now serves as the first female primary spiritual adviser to a U.S. president. This story was produced with financial support from Trish and Dan Bell and from donors comprising the South Florida Jewish and Muslim Communities, in partnership with Journalism Funding Partners. The Miami Herald maintains full editorial control of this work.
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
What is it that New Hampshire Republicans want, at the end?
People protest various actions undertaken by the Trump administration and Elon Musk during a rally in front of the State House on March 14, 2025. (Photo by Dana Wormald/New Hampshire Bulletin) I'm confused about what Republican voters in New Hampshire want. I mean, I know what they want right now. Lower (or nonexistent) taxes, the dismantling of public education, fewer (or zero) protections for LGBTQ people, the disappearance of migrants who lack the proper documentation, the elimination of environmental regulations, the continued dominance of fossil fuels, reductions to (or the end of) the social safety net, more power for parents to control what their kids learn at school, a version of the American story that redacts any mention of genocide or slavery, a male- and Christian-dominated system of women's reproductive health care, freedom from vaccination and other public health initiatives, and the overall elimination of the public sector as we know it. That much is clear. What I don't understand is what they want ultimately. Once all of the so-called liberal or progressive policies and systems are eradicated, what kind of state and nation are we left with? The replies from the right are not tough to predict: 'Sounds like paradise to me.' But that's just the politics of retribution talking, with all of its B.S. bravado and 'Make America Great Again' inanity. Is a society without community-based public education a better society? Republicans seem to think so, but I can't wrap my brain around what it is they are picturing instead. When education is privatized, which is the ultimate goal of school vouchers, how can the system create anything other than rich schools for rich kids and poor schools for poor kids, a predicament-by-design not unlike the one we find ourselves in now. So, vouchers can't be the solution. The answer to New Hampshire's equity problem is fair taxation and distribution — a system of public education no longer reliant on collective wealth within town lines. Republicans like to scare voters away from this kind of unity by screaming 'socialism' at every opportunity, but what they are proposing instead is increased inequality through privatization. How is that a better situation for anyone other than the already wealthy and powerful? How is society stronger when our transgender or immigrant neighbors are afraid for their very lives because of policies instituted or protections repealed based on nothing more than apocryphal anecdotes and cultivated fear? How is our beautiful state an even better place to live because environmental regulations are eliminated and clean power and energy efficiency initiatives are blocked? Even if you buy the economic arguments of the need for fossil fuel-based energy policies, is the degradation of New Hampshire's natural environment (and, you know, the continued destruction of the planet) worth it? And are we such big fans of free-market liberty that we'll accept the White Mountain National Forest being opened up to any and all kinds of corporate exploitation? Is all of that the goal? And what do New Hampshire Republicans want for their children? Freedom from vaccines that are intended to make their very future more assured? Do they want their kids to believe that the American experiment was of divine creation, that there was no tragic abandonment of human principles at any point along the way to the 21st century? No colonization, no genocide, no slavery, no segregation, no lynchings, no red-lining. To what end do we create those gaps in our children's knowledge? Is it the belief that there can be darkness or light, good or evil, but not both? That we are a nation built and maintained only by heroes, so different from the rest of us in our daily imperfection and inability to live up to our own standards of behavior? What is more human than wanting, needing to know — about what lies over the horizon, in the stars, at the bottom of the ocean, in the hearts of those who are so different from ourselves? Is the point to stop the kids from yearning for knowledge and understanding about the complexities of how this moment came to be? I know that not all New Hampshire Republicans want the same things. For some, it's the pro-business, anti-tax piece of the platform that makes them register as Republicans. For others, it's a desire for revenge against societal shifts that they don't like or that make them uncomfortable — for which they use the shorthand 'woke.' But in this moment, made unique by the appetite and actions of Donald Trump and his administration, it is impossible for a New Hampshire Republican to pick and choose the way the party does or does not represent their desires. In the March 27 edition of The New York Review of Books, Neal Ascherson writes about a recent book by Richard J. Evans titled 'Hitler's People: The Faces of the Third Reich.' Here's Ascherson, under the headline 'Ordinary Germans': 'The late Erhard Eppler, a radical Christian who became 'the conscience of Social Democrats' in postwar West Germany, used to invoke the Roman fasces as the image of twentieth-century fascism: a bundle of quite disparate rods (or policies) held together by the strap of the leader. When the strap is cut, the rods scatter, and people could claim that 'I agreed with Hitler about revising the Versailles Treaty or 'degenerate culture,' but I always thought the persecution of the Jews a grave mistake. So I never believed in the whole fasces-bundle. So I was never truly a Nazi!' To which Evans's book in effect retorts: During the Third Reich, you could not pick and choose between 'rods.' You either accepted or rejected the bundle as a whole.' I bring up Ascherson's description of the rods and the bundle not to compare regimes but rather to see what one political moment can tell us about another. To be a Republican in New Hampshire in 2025 is to be for all of the things I mentioned at the top of this essay. The social, cultural, political, and economic toll of that bundle is such that no one can claim liberty to choose from among the rods, now or later. There was a time when a Republican could declare themselves a 'moderate' or a 'fiscal conservative,' but times have changed in a way that disallows that luxury. All that remains is history's clear choice: You either accept or reject the bundle as a whole.
