Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 90: Faith Meets Power

Transcript

Ep. 90: Faith Meets Power · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my name is Bree.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Happy New Year. Happy New Year. New you. New me. Are we new?
• 0:38
  We're all made new through Christ. Oh, boy. Did you know that every seven years, they say your body because your cells regenerate and whatever, that you're, like,
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: a fully new person? I kinda believe that because I'm not the same person I was seven years ago. I like cucumbers.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: You do like cucumbers. That's weird.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Brianna has spent her entire life passionately hating cucumbers. Which is buys anything. It's like a weird thing to passionately hate, though. Well, I didn't like them. But it's just I don't understand.
• 1:07
  They're the best thing ever. I agree. And what? Two years ago? All of a sudden, she just flipped a switch, and she was like, no.
• 1:13
  I love these now.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: Mhmm.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: And now you love them love them. Yeah. Oh,
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: yeah. I love strange. I specifically like to make them into cucumber salad, like an Asian cucumber salad with lots of vinegar and garlic and spiciness.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: So perhaps your new year's resolution can be retry something very basic that I should like.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Like, what? I don't know. Maybe this should be a you thing because I've made a major transformation. Maybe you should retry stuffing and gravy.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: No. Those are gross.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Ranch dressing.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a texture thing. I just can't.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Ranch dressing doesn't have the same texture as stuffing. Okay.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: But they all have textural issues is my point.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Weird dressing does?
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Yes. It's gloopy. But you like Caesar dressing. But only, like, when they put a little bit of on like, if they put a lot on, I'm out.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: You could put a little bit of ranch dressing. I don't
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: want to. But you could. I could.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: But I won't. And it
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: would make your plain boring salads amazing. And less healthy. It doesn't matter. I could just add lemon juice and olive oil.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: That's also good, but not the same.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: Okay. So I have been watching this show, and Brie's actually really pissed at me about it. But I started watching this show. It's on Netflix. It's called Nobody Wants This, and it's got Kristen Bell and Adam Brody in it.
• 2:43
  And I came into Brie's room the other day, and I was like, I have a new favorite show. I'm so excited about it. It's so good. You're gonna love it. And then she told me that she had already watched it and told me about it.
• 2:54
  I'm so annoyed. This
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: was a long time ago. Because, like, season one came out a while ago.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's not new.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: And someone had told me about it, and I was like, oh, let me see that. And I binged through the whole first season, and I said, Alyssa, you need to watch this. It's so good. The banter is so good. It's about two sisters.
• 3:11
  They have a podcast. It's just like me and you, except different.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: Except they both kind of suck. Yeah. And so do we.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Well, hurtful. And then she comes up to me like, wow. I need to tell you something. She forgets everything that I say.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: It's very possible. Nothing stays in my brain for long. But my point is What's the point? So these two sisters have a podcast. Right?
• 3:38
  Now it is not a faith and feminism podcast. It's a podcast about sex.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: What's ours about? Oh,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: is that what we're about?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Who knew? But we need to upgrade is what I've learned from this show. Okay? They have a researcher. They have an editor.
• 3:54
  They have a recording space. They have, like, people send them in questions, and I really need to live that life. So what I'm saying, Brie, is pick it up.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Brie's tired.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: I can't pick anything up anymore.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: My thumbs don't work. And also, Alyssa and I have gotten really into doing our own nails.
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: That's true. We have.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: And now my nails are so long. I can't pick anything up.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I really need to we need to cut these things down.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's like claws. I'm struggling just like day to day activities.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Speaking of struggling with day to
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: day activities and Claws,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I was I never know how to transition. I just don't know. Make our sound. That was a different sound. Was
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: that the same sound? I don't know.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Before you guys were invited onto the podcast today, before we started recording, Brie got this chicken for Christmas from my daughter. It's like a dog toy. It's like one of those squeaky chickens.
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: And she goes, I for Christmas, I just thought, what's the weirdest thing I could possibly get into? And this rubber chicken dog toy.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Don't squeeze it. Now it just sounds like you're tooting into the mic. Ow. But it makes the most annoying sound known to man, and she was squeaking it into the microphone.
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: So you missed that.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So good for you. So now that we've transitioned, Last week, we talked a little bit about a series we wanted to do on problematic Christian figures. And through this series, I think it's gonna be a longer one for us because, well, there are a lot of them. A lot of problematic people out there.
• 5:36
  Yeah, man. But we're gonna talk about a lot of different kinds of people. We're gonna talk about pastors. We're gonna talk about musicians. Today, we're gonna talk about a televangelist slash adviser to the president.
• 5:49
  And it's gonna be it's gonna be
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: a wild ride. Anybody who's out there very publicly claiming to be Christian Mhmm. And not acting like the handsome feet of Jesus, get ready. We're gonna call you out. There is a Christian rapper called Shy Lin, I believe their name is.
• 6:12
  And they came out with a song called False Teacher. Mhmm. And at the end of the song, they go on for a long time, and they just list all of these people who are out there, like he even calls out Joyce Meyer. Mhmm.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: And then says or she.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Just says false teacher. Mhmm. Calls him right out. So I feel like
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: we can do that too. I mean, we can't be the only ones. No. There are certainly other podcasts out there. So today, we're gonna talk about the spiritual adviser to the president.
• 6:42
  Her name is Paula White. Paula White Cain. Interesting that she's a woman because, of course, the traditional Protestant movement, and we talked about Doug Wilson last year, do not see women as having the capability to lead. Now Paula has been a lead pastor. She has been the lead pastor of several different churches and is now in a very high ranking position at the White House.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: It's interesting to see these women in these positions. And we talked about her last week too, but like, Kirk and Paula. If you look up what they say about women in leadership Mhmm. Paula has said that she stepped up as senior pastor because there were men that did not. Mhmm.
• 7:25
  So in a perfect world, man would have stepped forward. But because they didn't, she then had to step up. And she also will tell you that her husband is the head of her household. But she's not out there living it. Right.
• 7:38
  She's happy to preach it at every other woman in the world, say, stay down. Right. But she's not living it. Mhmm. What a great example.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It reminds me that statement reminds me of when we talked about Deborah from the bible, Big Deb, if you remember that episode. Big Deb. And people use that excuse for Deborah all the time. Deborah was a judge in the bible.
• 7:58
  She's in the book of judges. And she essentially had power over Israel at the time, over the Israelite people at the time. She was leading them and ended up leading them into battle. And the reason that a lot of people give for that to kind of explain that story away is they say, well, no good men wanted to lead. And I find that such a bizarre statement because if god is good, if god has a plan, and god's plan is patriarchy, as many of these conservative pastors and leaders wanna say, then god would have raised up a man to lead.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: But he didn't. And so we've got Deborah. And I'm certainly not about to call Paula similar to Deborah. Don't get me wrong here. But it's the same sort of excuse.
• 8:47
  You know? Mhmm. Now Paula Paula is an interesting figure in and of herself. She has a lot of you may have seen her on TikTok. She's very controversial.
• 9:00
  She says some really horrifying things. But that might be where you are familiar with her from. But we're gonna go into her history a little bit. Brie has done a ton of research on her history. Yeah.
• 9:09
  And we'll kind of get up to today and where she's at right now.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: So Paula White Cain has many last names because she's been married many times. Her first husband was Dean Knight, and they were married from 1984 to 1989. They were divorced. Her second husband is Randy White. They were married from 1990 to 2007.
• 9:34
  Their marriage is maybe overlapped a little bit, her first and second husband's. They were divorced. And then her current husband is Jonathan Cain, who is the keyboardist for Journey. Yeah. He's in Journey.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: He is the keyboardist and songwriter for Journey, or one of the songwriters for Journey.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: So in her life, she's mainly known for right now working with Donald Trump. She worked with him in his first presidency. She was one of the special advisers to the White House in the office of faith based and neighborhood partnerships. And that was from May 2018 through January 2021. But currently, she's working with Donald Trump again with a new office that they created.
• 10:15
  And she's the senior adviser to the White House faith office, which is new. They never had a faith office before. It's something that in this presidency, he came up with and came up with a new leader.
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Now, she is a televangelist. She's had her own show since, I believe it was 2001, and now it's on, like, nine different networks. It's like Paula White Ministries. And that's how she got associated with Donald Trump because she's like a pastor and private minister to all kinds of celebrities. She's worked with Tyler Banks.
• 10:50
  She's the private minister to Donald Trump. She worked with Michael Jackson. She's an interesting lady. But she got her start with her second husband, Randy White. And together, they started Without Walls International Church, which
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: was an interesting church.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: They struggled financially at the beginning, so they struggled to find like a actual space. So they bounced around from space to space, and they ended up in a large outdoor tent. Now, their first campus was in Tampa. They ended up acquiring a second campus in Lakeland, Florida, which is maybe why they could host it outside because it was warm.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Couldn't do that here so much.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: But they ended up having they reported like 5,000 people?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Attendees.
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Attendees. In 1999. And they also reported having, like, 10,000 people that were ministered to throughout their two thirty other ministries. Right. Now by 2004, they reported that the congregation had reached, like, 20,000.
• 11:57
  So this is a mega church. Mhmm. This is massive. Huge. And then in an audit, it said from, like, 2004 through 2006, the church received $150,000,000 Now you looked up and saw that there was quite a bit of controversy about their finances.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Yes. So when the church was going on, there was a senate investigation. So this came up because of senator Chuck Grassley, and he put forth a finance inquiry from the senate because they were a little bit concerned about what was going on in this tax exempt church. Mhmm. Now if this was a company,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: then the government probably wouldn't care. But when it becomes a tax exempt organization, the government starts to take notice. Interesting why that's a problem now, but not for some other billionaires.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Yes. Well, here we are. So they started doing an investigation. Now there were no charges at the end of this investigation, just to preface that. No one went to jail.
• 12:54
  Nothing like that. However, the investigation did find that money was being used kind of like a personal expense account. So Paula and her husband had a waterfront mansion, and the church was picking up the mortgage. The entire family was on staff and being paid a salary, a significant salary. There were private jet related expenses that were happening.
• 13:19
  Like, basically, they had a debit card from the church, and they were just whatever, you know, they wanted. That's what was happening. So because of this investigation, things started going poorly for the church.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: What I found interesting too in my research was she did become the senior pastor of both campuses.
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: Mhmm.
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Her husband had stepped down in 2009 due to health concerns. And by 2011, she was the senior pastor for both of their campuses. Now, in 2011, services ceased to their Lakeland campus because the electricity went out, because they didn't pay $50,000 in bills. Dollars 50,000 is not that big of an expense if you consider their $150,000,000 that they're taking in. Right.
• 14:07
  So eventually, Randy White did come back and started to take over, and his wife, Paula, said that she stepped away by the time this happened. But they did declare bankruptcy in 2014.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: Now interestingly, so they did file Chapter 11 bankruptcy. And Chapter 11 kind of allows you to restructure and get your debtors off your back to some degree. So if you're not from The US, that's kinda what happens. So you don't have to completely go under. You are able to still function, but a lot of your debts disappear.
• 14:41
  And so the people that they owed money to, they owed about $29,000,000, and they believed they were using the bankruptcy essentially just to stall foreclosure. Mhmm. Because once the bank forecloses on the building, you're done for. You know? So instead, we'll go through bankruptcy, and we'll try to restructure and whatever just so that we don't fully go under, but also don't have to pay the people.
• 15:04
  Which is not very Dave Ramsey. I'm not a fan
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: of Dave Ramsey. But still. But this is not very Dave Ramsey.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: This is not very Dave Ramsey.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: Now Paula and Randy had been divorced since 2007. So they'd been separated for a while. Now after she left Without Walls International Church, she went and became the senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center in 2011. She took over as senior pastor, and the congregation was not super happy about this. And in fact, the ex wife of the previous pastor, who I believe had passed away, started a lawsuit against the church for bringing her on, and then she ended up rescinding it.
• 15:46
  Mhmm. Which I'm a little bit confused by that. But she did. There was lots of controversy. Yeah.
• 15:53
  And she came out in one of her, like, messages and said, I'm not asking you to like me. I'm not asking you to love me or respect me because I'll do the work to earn it. I always ask people to give me one year of their life, and I promise you will be changed.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Now, some of this doesn't sound bad, though. Like, on one level, you're looking at if you, you know, forget sort of the money stuff for a minute. Here's a strong woman who is a senior pastor who people don't like her, but she's gonna, you know, go against the controversy, and she's gonna win their hearts and whatever. But that's not the whole story.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: She's tugging at people's heartstrings so that they do like her, but then that gives her the excuse to say crazy things Right. Once you're under her spell. Exactly.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Some of the really interesting things about her, she is very much like a prosperity preacher.
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: Mhmm.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: So if you're familiar with Joel Osteen, he is considered a prosperity preacher.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: He's called out as a false teacher in that song.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: I'm sure he is. But that essentially means that they are preaching if you give to the church. If you give not just your tithe, which is generally considered your 10%, but, like, over and above, you are just, like, abundantly giving to the church, that god will financially bless you. And they don't just mean, oh, your mortgage will get covered. You'll have a roof over your head.
• 17:22
  You'll have food on your table. They are trying to preach that if you are overly generous with
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: the rest givers, they call it,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: you will be insanely wealthy. God will give you a crazy amount of wealth, which I just I mean, I know that I've quoted this before, but the Bible very specifically says, like, when Jesus is asked, can a wealthy person come to heaven? He says, it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle. So the idea that if I give to the church, Jesus will make me wealthy,
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: it just doesn't track. Or it's almost like buy your way into heaven. Right?
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Exactly. So that's one of the things that she has been really criticized for. In 2025, so very recently, after she took this office at the White House, which we'll talk more about in a minute, she had a Passover Easter message in which she tied giving to the church to receiving seven supernatural blessings. So this is, like, wildly specific. Right?
• 18:27
  If you give and it the number was a thousand dollars. A thousand dollars to the church. Very specific number from god there. Mhmm. That you will receive seven supernatural blessings.
• 18:42
  Now, some of these very specific blessings, because she named them because she's a psycho, were an angel being assigned just to you. Your very own angel to follow you around like a pet.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking of in The Emperor's New Groove,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: where Kronk has those two angels on
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: his shoulders. That's what I'm picturing.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Yes. That's exactly that's what she was talking about.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh, yeah. And she'll send them to
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: you Yeah. In a box. For 1995. She also promised prosperity, sickness being removed, and other things like that, which I just how do you listen to something like that? And maybe it's just I would love to say it's just really desperate people, I guess.
• 19:24
  Because I can understand that there are people out there who are just desperate for something, some meaning, you know, and you see something like this and you're like, okay. Okay. I need something. I'm giving to something important. Right.
• 19:37
  And God will bless me. And I'm sick. Or my mom is sick. Or, you know, whatever. And this will help.
• 19:44
  But if you really read the Bible, if you read anything that Jesus said at all, this is not what Jesus says. And that's, I think, where I get really frustrated with these big churches Mhmm.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: When they constantly have message after message after message encouraging you to do your tithes, to be a radical giver, to round up, to use their Give app, to send in checks. But they're not straightforward with where that money is going. Right. They'll give you, sometimes at the end of the year, they'll say one big thing that they did with your money. Hey, we helped pay off the lunch bills for these kids.
• 20:21
  Right. Or, hey, we helped cover some medical debt. But they're not always clear about what all the other expenses are. Mhmm. And when you're up there and you're looking at your pastor in his $300 shoes, that gets really frustrating.
• 20:34
  Because you think about the people who are not radical givers, but they're doing their best because they feel called by God to even do $20 a month or something like that. But then you think about where that money actually is going. That's really frustrating.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. Well, I've talked about my experiences, and I won't go into them again because you guys have heard it. But I being behind the scenes at a church and seeing the insane level of waste there and knowing that this isn't necessarily an overly wealthy community and that there are people who are giving until it hurts, that are giving an amount of money that they really can't afford to give, but they're trying to follow, you know, the the tithing rules and things like that. And they're being encouraged to give. And they are being told, if you do this, God will bless you.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Yes. That's the message is if you give, you'll never have to worry again about money.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: And that's enticing. That's why people do
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: the lottery too. Right? Because if
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: I just buy this one more ticket, maybe I'll strike it big.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Right. And the bible does talk about giving to your local church. It does. The bible says, test me on this. And I can understand the need to give to your local church because they can't function without Mhmm.
• 21:49
  Donations and things like that from people. But it is the manipulation behind it. The way that it's spoken about, even in churches that aren't necessarily prosperity churches, that still are very clearly implying if you give us money, you will be blessed.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Well, it's like there's a church in our area, right, that just auctioned off the front pew at the church?
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Yes. So there is a Catholic church in our area, and I just found out about this. It's one of their biggest fundraisers for the year. They auction off the front pew for their Christmas Eve mass.
• 22:24
  And I have never I've never heard such a direct reference to, like, Jesus flipping tables in the temple. Okay? Right. Because everybody knows that person paid $10,000 to sit there. Mhmm.
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: Everybody knows. They paid their way into being the holiest person in Right? The
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: And that's what Paula is talking about here. You're gonna pay your way into blessings. Mhmm. And in a way, you're gonna pay your way into heaven. Because if a thousand dollars buys me a little angel that sits on my shoulder, in theory What will $10,000 do?
• 22:58
  Exactly. And that's if I've got an angel on my shoulder, God's certainly not gonna turn me down when I get up there. Right?
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: And I think that's where she gets really dangerous to is she was a celebrity pastor. She's a private minister to all these huge celebrities Mhmm. Who have very deep pockets. Mhmm. That's enticing for her too.
• 23:22
  Right? She wants that power. Mhmm. And that's how she got roped into being with Donald Trump. Right?
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: I think that title in and of itself is such a strange one to me. Like, private minister. Hold on. Let me hire a private minister. What a weird statement.
• 23:39
  But also, it does get her around. And one of the things that we were when we were researching
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: it said She gets around.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Her second husband, he kind of faded into the background. After they got divorced, he he kind of disappeared from the spotlight, and she really ramped it up. She stayed in the spotlight. And one of the things that people talk about is that she learned how to do all the bad things and get away with it.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: How to take the money and get away with it.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: It's all about who you know. Mhmm. Right? And if she's with people who get away with a lot of stuff, she's gonna get away with a lot of stuff. Right.
• 24:16
  If you have enough money, you can get away with quite a bit, we found out.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Well, and think about it. She's no longer a nonprofit. Right? Mhmm. She's a private minister, which means she can charge whatever she wants.
• 24:28
  And the government, in theory, is not going to get involved. So now all this money that she was taking from a church, she doesn't have to take it from the church anymore. She's her own thing. And she's gonna keep all of that for herself despite the fact that Jesus called us to do exactly the opposite of that.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I know. So she's known as pretty controversial with some of the things that she's been saying. I'm sure you've heard some of her quotes regarding Donald Trump, but she's known as a Christian nationalist. And we've talked about that at nauseum about this is bad. We don't want this.
• 25:06
  But she's also known as a Christian Trumpist.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I had never heard that prior to this. And the fact that those two the fact that Christian nationalist is put together is bizarre and horrifying to me. But the fact that Christian and Trump are, like, hyphenated together, I just cannot the level of blasphemy. I just can't.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: If you wanna talk about not using the Lord's name in vain Mhmm. A lot of Christians think it's just using God's name as a cuss word. But I really think it's not. Mhmm. I think it's this.
• 25:43
  Yeah. I think it's putting someone before God that's blasphemy and idolatry. But it's also what she's doing is telling people that he's like Jesus. He is the way, the truth, the life. And if you don't bow down to Trump, then you're not a Christian.
• 26:05
  Mhmm. And you're going to hell.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: One of her very specific quotes is, if you say no to Donald Trump, you're saying no to God. And I I can't imagine wanting someone to say that about me. I beg of you all to never say that about me because imagine imagine that. Saying no to Alyssa is saying no to God. I don't want to be on that level.
• 26:32
  That's horrible.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: What I want to know is where is she getting this information from? Now I will say she went to a Bible college and seminary. She did not get a degree. That's important to note. But someone who's out there saying that they're Christians, saying that they're preaching the gospel should know Exodus 23 that says, you shall have no other gods before me.
• 26:55
  Or Psalms one forty six three that says, do not put your trust in princes and mortal men who cannot save. Trump cannot save. Mhmm. And so if you're looking at Donald Trump and thinking that he is God, you better watch your back because you're about to get smote.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: If you're looking for a savior in any person, they're gonna fail you, even if they were a great person. And Donald Trump clearly is not. But even let's assume that it was a great person, that it was a truly moral, wonderful person. They will still fail you. Well, Jesus had the opportunity to come down as a king.
• 27:36
  Right? As a political leader. And he didn't. And anybody who's telling you that your faith makes you have to choose one political party, they're lying to you. We're supposed to be not political.
• 27:49
  Right? Well, we're pretty political. We're pretty political, but I feel like we're, like, you know, we just wanna do good by people. Right? I think the important aspect of being political as a faith based person is to say, I want everything to line up with my main mission.
• 28:10
  And my main mission as a Christ follower is to love God and love others. It's not to be a republican, to be a democrat, to be liberal, to be conservative. It's none of those things. It's simply to love God and love others. And that's how I want policies to be shaped.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. And a lot of Christians, when their party is in power, will cite the verse Romans thirteen one that says, let everyone be subject to the governing authorities. But then also throughout the Bible, you'll read where Jesus does not follow the authorities. He says, follow God.
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: Mhmm.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Not the people in power just because they're in power. Follow God because God is God. And you can see that in John six fifteen, if you wanna look that up. Or John eighteen thirty six. You want me to
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: keep quoting them? I I'm sure that you could. It's basically the whole bible.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: This is why I'm confused. Like, she's supposed to be a minister. She's supposed to be this famous pastor. Mhmm.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: How is she saying what she's saying? Well, what she's saying is rarely about Jesus. In the quotes that I'm reading from her and, you know, obviously, she's got a lot of sermons and things like that. But her focus, at least right now, at least since 2018, has not been on Jesus. It's been on Donald Trump.
• 29:27
  It's been on getting him elected. It's been on putting him on her TV show and putting her face out there next to his face.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: And then she's kissing him. Yuck. She's really into Cheeto dust. One of her other quotes is, wherever I go, God rules. When I walk on the White House grounds, God walks on White House grounds with me.
• 29:50
  I have every right and authority to declare the White House holy grounds because I am standing there, and where I stand is holy. Well, then, okay. But again, if you look through the Bible, the only land that's called holy is land that God has called holy. Mhmm. Not just because, oh, I'm a Christian,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and wherever my tiptoes little wander Mhmm.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Is now holy consecrated land. I wanna talk a
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: little bit about her role, her current role, because I think it's important to understand what that is. It's important to understand the office that she's part of and the history of it and things like that. So she is the head of the White House faith office, which essentially makes her like the spiritual adviser to the president. Now it's not new to have some kind of faith based office, and I'll go into that in a second. But we've had one in The United States since George W.
• 30:50
  Bush. So that was in the early two thousands. And so we've had we've had some form of it for a long time, but those early organizations were mostly focused on helping faith based institutions get grants. It was pretty simple. They weren't advisory to the president.
• 31:08
  They were kinda they were very separate. It was just like, alright. We're gonna help you guys figure out how to write grants. Grant writing is a pain. And, you know, those types of things keeping it very much on the outside, but it did exist.
• 31:21
  It was not called the White House faith office, but it was there. Now also through Obama and Biden, we had another office. When George w Bush started it in 2001, it was called the White House Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives. So that's when it started. And then Obama renamed it and expanded it to be the White House Office of Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
• 31:45
  Now when Obama took it over, he made it less about faith based organizations and more about, like, neighborhood community. So there were definitely faith based people there. There were also atheists involved, people from all walks of life just kind of trying to make their communities better. When Trump took office between Obama and Biden, he did change it. Paula, at that time, started to be part of the organization, but it was not nearly as extreme as it is now.
• 32:18
  Again, we're not advisory when Obama was involved. When Biden took office after Trump lost his second term, he reestablished it and kinda did the same things that Obama did. So they were focused on things like COVID nineteen recovery, systemic racism, poverty, things like that. You know? Like, community stuff.
• 32:40
  Community initiatives. Now when Trump took office in 2025, he abolished that and renamed it the White House Office of Faith, putting Paula at the top of it. So I thought, gee, I wonder what sort of faiths are represented here.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: Right? It must be very diverse because it's just faith in general. Right? It's not.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: So Paula is a Pentecostal Protestant televangelist. So she's charismatic, but Protestant the head. The other leaders include Jennifer Korn, who is the deputy assistant to Paula. She is more of, like, a politician, not necessarily, like, a pastoral type person, but she is involved. And then there's Jackson Lane, who is the deputy director of faith engagement.
• 33:30
  He went to a Baptist university and has a Protestant evangelical background. And those are the leaders of this organization.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: It's very diverse.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Very diverse. So this is a Protestant faith office. They should just rename it that. Right? The Protestant faith office.
• 33:48
  Yeah. Which means that no other faiths are being represented here. And I just wanna ask the question. We come from a very conservative background, and a lot of people in our space are celebrating this. They're like, oh, there's a faith office.
• 34:02
  Oh, they're praying in the White House. People have laid hands on the president and prayed to the lord. Whatever.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: You know? I think our president has laid hands on
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: a few people. Thank you for that. You're welcome.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: And I just don't understand because you're so thrilled that yay Protestantism is in the White House. But what happens when we have a president who is not of your faith?
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Well, that's happening in New York right now. Right? The mayor of New York City, Mamdani Mhmm. Recently swore in, and he's Muslim. Mhmm.
• 34:39
  So when he swore in, he put his hand on two Qurans. Now there's nothing that says you have to swear in on anything other than raising your hand. Mhmm. But for some reason, we think, Oh, no. Why didn't he swear in on a stack of Bibles?
• 34:55
  Now, the Qurans that he swore in on were very meaningful to him. One belonged to his grandfather. I don't know which the other one belonged to, but they were important to him. Mhmm. And that means something.
• 35:05
  When he swore in on those two books Mhmm. That meant something to him. If he sworn on two Bibles, what would that mean to him?
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: As someone who doesn't share that faith. Yeah. If you were atheist, you
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: could swear in on a dictionary if you really wanted to. But people are up in arms about that. Right. They're thinking he's trying to bring in his religion Mhmm. Into New York.
• 35:29
  But you're not concerned about it if it's Christianity. Exactly. Which is what your White House is trying to do. Yes.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: If you're okay with it now, then you're gonna have to be okay with it when it's a different religion. Mhmm. That's the thing. If you open this up and you say, okay, we want a faith office only staffed by people of the faith of the president, which I I don't for one moment believe he's actually a Christian, but assuming. Then when the president is of a different faith and he staffs that same office with just people of their faith, then things are going to change.
• 36:07
  And you're suddenly gonna feel persecuted instead of, right now, we're persecuting people of other faiths. Mhmm. The moment that faith gets involved in the government, faith is involved in the government, and you can't turn back around.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. That's why it's important to have the separation of the two so that you can have your policy and your government, but then privately, you can have whatever faith you want. That's part of why we came to The United States. Right? We wanted religious freedom.
• 36:36
  We want everybody to have that freedom. Mhmm. God gave us free will. He gave us free will for a purpose so that we had the opportunity to choose him. And that is my faith.
• 36:48
  And I hope that everybody chooses
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: Him. But
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: He gave us free will for a reason. Right. So who am I to tell someone else that they don't get
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: to have that free will
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: when God told me I could?
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: And there are plenty of Christians out there that feel this way. Because if you read Kamala Harris's book, A Hundred and Seven Days, which I recommend that you do, it was very interesting. And she reads the Audible. So good. Really, really cool to hear her read it.
• 37:14
  But she is someone of a Christian faith. When she was asked to run, she called her pastor. They sat and prayed together. It's an important part of her personal life. And yet you don't necessarily hear about it in her political life because she's kept the two things separate.
• 37:35
  It's important to her as an individual, but as a politician she is going to fight for the rights of everyone, of all the people. And that's important because I assume that the president will not always share my faith.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Because we can look back in history and see that it's not always been a super Christian Republican.
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: It's been Democrats. It's been Republican. It's been Democrats. It's been something else. Just because your political party is in power right now doesn't mean they're gonna be in power in eight years from now.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: Right. I just don't understand the logic. I just I really struggle. Like, I'm sitting here trying to put it together in my own head because we have like I said, we have a lot of people that we love that are excited about these things, that are happy that these things are happening. And I don't understand it because you have to think forward.
• 38:26
  You have to think ahead. Thank goodness this president cannot run again. Mhmm. So what happens next?
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: Well, also, if you look back in the past, and I'm not talking always, but in the past, there the two parties have at least been civil. Right. Even now, you have George W. Bush at Trump's inauguration sitting and chatting with Kamala Harris
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: With Obama. And they don't share the same political beliefs. Mhmm. Right? But they're civil with each other.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Right. And they treat each other as people. And they respect each other.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: Yes. But now our current administration has just been nothing but hateful. Mhmm. And they've inspired hate. And they've assigned God's name to it.
• 39:09
  Right. And that is the biggest problem that I'm having right now is they're up there saying, we're Christians. We're praying in the White House. We're bringing God back to America. But then you're hating Mhmm.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: Everybody. Mhmm.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: And now all of the people who maybe were wondering, maybe should I become Christian? Now they're looking at you and saying, no way, Jose. Absolutely not. If that's what Christianity is, I want no part in it.
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: Right. And what kind of
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: culture does that create? If we have said we no longer have to respect the people who have opinions that are different from ours, it creates an entire culture of hate. And that's what we're seeing in a lot of Christian churches right now.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: We're supposed to model our life after Jesus. Right? Did Jesus do that? When he went to the well and saw a Samaritan woman, not only was she a woman, so that was controversial to speak to her at all, but she was a Samaritan woman who was a person that typically Jewish people did not speak to. Mhmm.
• 40:08
  Right? But he did. And he shared that he was the way, the truth, and
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: the life. He had living water. Right? Why aren't we doing that? Because we are focused on gaining power.
• 40:19
  And you can see that in a lot of what Paula says. Brie had a clip up if you wanna share it as well. But some of the things that she has said on TikTok in 2020, she got a lot of backlash after a sermon clip where she prayed for the miscarriage of satanic pregnancies, which in her mind are essentially non Christian pregnancies or out of wedlock pregnancies, some things like that, which I don't ever wanna criticize anyone for their divorces, things like that, but feels a little bit hypocritical from the woman who's had three husbands and multiple affairs.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: Also hypocritical when she's saying, like, abortion is not okay.
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: Mhmm.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: But you're praying for the miscarriage of these babies. Mhmm. Here is just a TikTok of a compilation of things that she said.
• 41:08
  Speaker 5: To say no to president Trump would be saying no to God. We command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now. It is not found in Antifa, and it is not found in Black Lives Matter, all which are antichrist. I declare that president Trump will overcome every strategy from hell and every strategy of the enemy. And any tongue that rises against him will be condemned according to the word of God.
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: It's not okay to have an abortion. It's not okay to marry the same sex.
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: Strike and strike strike and strike strike strike strike strike until you have victory. It is God that raises up a king. It is God that sets one down. And so when you fight against the plan of God, you're fighting against the hand of God. The supreme court justice says, if we get two more, come on, if we get two more.
• 42:04
  And right now, I know right now, we are scaring the literal hell out of demonic spirits by me saying this right now. Because if we get two more, we will be able to overturn demonic laws and decree. I've never been hatred like this I've never president. Seen never in my life. Principalities could not control this man because he surrounds himself with Christians.
• 42:26
  He is a Christian. Have you ever asked God for forgiveness? That's a tough question. I'm not sure I have. I don't bring God into that picture.
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: Sorry. I'm sorry that you had to hear that.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Hate, hate, hate, double hate.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: If you heard her speaking kind of gibberish in the middle there, and were confused or concerned, perhaps, she is a charismatic pastor, And so part of her belief structure is speaking in tongues, which is mentioned in the Bible, but a lot of charismatic churches do it without interpreters, things like that. So that's what was going on in the middle there, if you're unfamiliar with
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Which is interesting because in the Bible, when they talk about the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues, there are very specific ways that you should be doing it. And one one of the laws is having an interpreter there.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Mhmm. Right. Yeah. It's hearing I think it's important to really hear her because we can sit here and talk about it all day, and clearly, we could. But hearing it out of her mouth, It just really brings home to me, like, the message that people are buying into, the lies that people are buying into.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: If you think a president can save you, if you think a person can save you, you are mistaken. Mhmm. And I am sad for you.
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: I've been struggling with this a lot because there are so many people that I love very much who truly believe that Trump was sent by God and not as the antichrist.
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Different from our belief. Different from ours.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to deal with it. And maybe you guys are dealing with the same thing where you sit there and you're like, I don't know how to have a conversation with someone who both claims to be a Christian but stands for this level of hate. Claims to be a Christian but then tells everyone who looks or thinks differently than they do that they are horrible and going to hell. I don't know. I don't know how.
• 44:49
  I don't know how to say both Jesus is love and Christians should be love.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: But these aren't my Christians. These aren't my Christians.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: Who are you following? Are you following Jesus? Because Jesus is not this. Next week, we're gonna talk about Mark Driscoll, who is a very, very, very problematic pastor. But one of the quotes from him that we'll talk about is he talks about how he can't worship the hippie halo diaper wearing version of Jesus.
• 45:23
  That it's not quite the direct quote, but it's very close. And, essentially, he goes on to say, because I can't worship someone I could beat up. I think we've quoted that before. But that's kind of the same vibe that these people are preaching, this take the world at all costs, violent takeover. Strike.
• 45:43
  Strike. Strike. Strike. Strike. Paula said, as though Jesus was a war hero, as though Jesus came and did a violent takeover.
• 45:53
  But he didn't. There are four books telling us how Jesus lived his life. And in every single one of them, Jesus is a pacifist. Jesus is calm. Like, he's got a couple of moments where he gets emotional, as do we all.
• 46:09
  But as a whole, he lives his life in a loving, kind, calm way. As much
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: as you can live at peace with each other. Mhmm. And we are not living at peace with each other. And we are not showing the love of God. You're right.
• 46:25
  Jesus was a refugee. Jesus came in and healed people. He fed people that were hungry. He led people to better lives, and he taught them how to live in community with each other. And if you take a good long look around you right now, that is not what's happening.
• 46:46
  And that's why I'm excited to really call some people out in these next few episodes. Because as we talked about on our last episode, one of our most popular episodes was in we hate, hate, hate it on, Danae Thompson. So here we are, hate, hate, hating again. On Paula this time. On Paula.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: When Jesus went back to heaven after he was crucified, he left telling his disciples, both men and women, to go out into the world and make disciples of all nations. Right? Go out and share who Jesus was. Because love is multiplying. Love is that bubbly, wonderful feeling that you get when you're near someone that is just that happy, glowy personality.
• 47:41
  Do you
• 47:41
  Speaker 5: know what
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: I It's intoxicating. It's this little light of mine. Right? But I think you hit that word perfectly. Share.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. Share what you have with someone. And that's not just a track. Gospel is so much more than that. Mhmm.
• 47:55
  Do exactly what Jesus did. Right? Share a meal with them. Mhmm. Share what you have with them.
• 48:00
  And that's how you go out and share God's love. Mhmm.
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: The question becomes, do you believe that this version of Christianity, that Trump and Paula White and other people in the White House, that this version of Christianity is bringing people to Christ? Not is it getting butts in seats at church. Is it bringing people into a loving relationship with Christ? Is it showing that true deep forgiveness and love that Jesus showed you? Do you believe that that's true?
• 48:34
  Because if you don't believe that what they're doing has that end result, then what was the point? Then you shouldn't be following that. The point was always power then. Right? The point was always political power.
• 48:49
  It was never about God. It was never about others. So examine your priorities and ask, how do I need to change that?
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: I would also say examine the people you share your life with. You're a product of the five people you spend the most time
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: with. Mhmm.
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: And if you look at Donald Trump and the people that he's surrounded himself with, look at their history. Look at what they're saying. Mhmm. Look at what he's saying. Is that the kind of person that you wanna follow?
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: Is that the kind of person Jesus would have walked beside? No. Jesus would not have stood for these principles. We all know that. Deep down, I think even the Christian nationalists know Jesus and Trump would not have been good butts.
• 49:37
  Okay? Would not have been friends. Probably wouldn't have been anywhere near one another because they stand for opposite things. One stands for love, and one stands for power. And those two things cannot coexist.
• 49:52
  Faith and power shouldn't go hand in hand. You can see that in the structure of how early Israel built their churches, how they put forth a king. They're supposed to have a king and also a spiritual leader. And they were separate individuals because power corrupts faith. So the spiritual leader spoke to God.
• 50:19
  And because they were a spiritual community advised the king, but they were separate because God knew when God told them how to structure this that power corrupts faith. Power has corrupted the Christian faith of The United States in a big, big, scary way. Big, big, monster scary.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: Mhmm. But we know God is bigger than the boogeyman, and he's watching out for you and me.
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: We do know that. So next week, we are gonna be talking about Mark Driscoll. If you're from The US, you probably have heard of him. If not, and you wanna hate yourself for a little while, I guess you could look up one of his sermons and follow along as we rip him to shreds too. Yeah.
• 51:06
  The following week, we're gonna be talking about some of the musicians, the Christian artists who have really also aligned themselves with the White House, people like Matthew West, people like Brandon Lake, who are great singers, but who have chosen to take their faith and align it with power.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: So tune in for those next couple
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: of weeks. We probably will go on with this series just because we've got a lot to say. We do. There's so many things. There's so many things to say.
• 51:35
  So tune in. Keep listening. We love you guys. Have a good beginning of the year.
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I hope we started this year out with
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: a bang. So happy. So peppy. So happy peppy people.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: That's what we're known for. Yes. Bye. Bye. Love you.