Gary TaphornAs reported by multiple news outlets, President Trump was joined in the Oval Office on March 19 by a group of Christian leaders who consulted with and “prayed over” the president. According to the Christian Post, the event was organized by the newly established White House Faith Office, which Trump had announced during his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast in February. An executive order followed shortly after, formally establishing the office and describing its roles.
Among the listed functions for the new organization are “protecting women and children; strengthening marriage and family; lifting up individuals through work and self-sufficiency, defending religious liberty; combatting anti-Semitic, anti-Christian, and additional forms of anti-religious bias; promoting foster care and adoption programs in partnership with faith-based entities; providing wholesome and effective education; preventing and reducing crime and facilitating prisoner reentry; promoting recovery from substance use disorder; and fostering flourishing minds.”
As the “senior advisor” to the president within the White House Faith Office, Trump chose Paula White-Cain, his long-time spiritual advisor who is credited by James Dobson with converting Trump to Christianity. According to Wikipedia, White-Cain is “an American televangelist, apostolic leader in the Independent Charismatic movement, and a proponent of prosperity theology.” White-Cain has a highly checkered past. Her religious beliefs have been called heretical by other evangelicals, she has been accused of “padding” her academic resume, and her ministry was the subject of an inconclusive four-year investigation by the Senate Finance Committee. Despite her appointment to the White House, her Paula White Ministries maintains an active website where, among other things, it emphasizes that “We Stand with Israel.” Like Trump, she has been married three times.
After her appointment as head of the White House Faith Office, White-Cain wasted no time in arranging the office’s first event on the president’s schedule. As reported by the Daily Mail, no fewer than sixteen “faith leaders” joined the president to pray in the Oval Office at the March 19 meeting, as featured in a White House photo of them gathered around the president. One of the attendees was William Wolfe, the Executive Director of the Center for Baptist Leadership, who called the event a ‘listening session’ to talk about policies and priorities that are important to Christians, such as protecting girls’ sports, pro-life issues, and eradicating anti-Christian bias in the government.
Certainly Trump, who has moved at light speed during his first weeks in office, has already accomplished much of what should be of concern to American Christians. This includes, for example, restoring the pro-life policies of his first administration, removing DEI as a formal government policy, and reining in out-of-control federal agencies. The public reporting on the meeting has been short on specifics and far more needs to be done. One obvious challenge facing Trump, if he is up to it, is defunding Planned Parenthood. (In its latest annual report, the abortion behemoth identified nearly $700 million of its revenue as coming from government “reimbursements and grants,” a full one-third of its budget.) With the president’s support, Congress has a golden opportunity to do just that through a budget reconciliation process expected in the April-May timeframe. With only 51 votes needed in the Senate for a budget reconciliation (versus 60 votes for other legislation), America’s prolifers will surely be expecting Trump and the Republicans to deliver for them.
Christian Zionists
In its coverage of the March 19 meeting, the Daily Mail provided the names of the sixteen attendees, along with a short biography of each. A careful look at the list reveals that, in addition to concern over traditional conservative and Christian issues, the vast majority of these members of Trump’s “prayer Army” are motivated, like Paula White-Cain, by support for Israel. In that regard, they are a continuation of a decades-long parade of evangelical ministers dating back to at least the 1970s. That list includes Jerry Falwell, Hal Lindsey, Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland, Rex Humbard, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Mike Evans, Tim LaHaye (better known as co-author of the Left Behind fictional series), Herbert W. Armstrong, John F. Walvoord, Jack Van Impe, and Benny Hinn, among others. Hinn, incidentally, was sued in 2011 for having an “inappropriate relationship” with Paula White, as she was known then. To be sure, not all of those men precisely followed the primary Christian Zionist party line of premillennial dispensationalism, complete with a “rapture.” However, they were certainly of one voice in support of Israel.
A quick look at those invited to the meeting with Trump confirms what is already well-known, that the president surrounds himself with advisors and staff who are firmly pro-Zionist and who will not hesitate to “stand with Israel.” Such officials include Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel, Mike Waltz as National Security Advisor, Elise Stefanik as Ambassador to the United Nations, and Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence.
The most prominent figure in the meeting was Gary Bauer, a former head of the Family Research Council and a Republican presidential candidate in 2000. Bauer has remained deeply embedded for many years with various pro-Israel organizations such as Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ). A second attendee, also well known in evangelical circles, is Pastor Robert Jeffress of the First Baptist Church in Dallas. A proponent of dispensationalist theology, Jeffress has referred to the Catholic Church as the “Satanic” result of “Babylonian mystery religion.” He has claimed that “Christians have a ‘moral and spiritual’ obligation to support Israel — and those who fail to do so are on the ‘wrong side of God.’” Jeffress was selected to lead the opening prayer at the dedication of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem in 2018, prompted by Trump’s unwavering support for Israel.
Another attendee of note was Jim Garlow, a former megachurch pastor in southern California. Although online information is somewhat scarce, Garlow has enthusiastically promoted an upcoming sermon on the much-anticipated ceremony of the red heifer in Israel and its key role in the building of the third temple. Finally, we should mention two Hispanic evangelical leaders. They are the Reverend Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and Mario Bramnick, Chairman and President of the Latino Coalition for Israel (LCI). According to Wikipedia, Rodriguez has been recognized as one of Israel’s Top 50 Christian Allies by the Israel Allies Foundation; he has also received the Jerusalem Award from the Friends of Zion Museum. As for Bramnick, who titles himself “Apostle,” his LCI has the stated mission to “establish the largest Hispanic Pro-Israel organization in America and to build a firewall against the Global rise of anti-Semitism.” Vice President Vance was not in attendance, nor were any Catholic priests or, apparently, any traditional Protestant clergy.
The vibrations of the meeting with Trump were apparently entirely positive. Reverend Rodriguez called Trump “unbelievably gracious” and “truly just remarkable,” praising him for his hospitality and referring to the meeting as “more like a family reunion.” Again, the contents of the meeting remain largely hidden, but it is difficult to believe, with the common interest in Israel, that support for the Zionist state did not feature prominently during the conversation. On the previous day (March 18), the international press was reporting Israel’s massive airstrikes over Gaza, after which the Ministry of Health in Gaza reported at least 400 people killed and another 500 injured. The same day, the United Nations issued a report by its Human Rights Commissioner in which Israel’s continued expansion of settlements on the occupied West Bank was referred to as “a war crime.”
One can only speculate over the content and results of this meeting. Did the “faith leaders” encourage Trump to give a green light to further confiscation of Palestinian land on the West Bank? Did they concur with the continued bombing of the hapless Palestinians in Gaza, now on the verge of a Stone Age existence after nearly 18 months of bombardment? Did they endorse the president’s proposal of a luxury resort in Gaza, at the cost of the forced exodus of more than a million civilians, an action that would violate Geneva Conventions and other international treaties? Was there any mention that the two premier global human rights organizations, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, have both charged Israel with genocide in Gaza? Was there any concern over Israel’s LGBTQ policies and Tel Aviv billing itself as the “ultimate LGBTQ travel destination?” Was interest expressed in building the third temple and the resumption of animal sacrifice, an action that would have huge international ramifications and deny the efficacy of Christ’s sacrificial passion and death?
We have no answers to these questions but those answers are essential, for Israel, the Palestinians, the Middle East, the United States, and the world. Those answers will determine whether Donald Trump’s America now truly stands for peace and justice or whether “make America great again” provides for a gaping exception for our so-called closest ally. Let us hope that the millions of prayers being offered for Trump and JD Vance will yield the former, not the latter.
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