A disagreement in conservative Christian circles being described as a “religious row” has broken out over President Donald Trump’s re-appointment of the evangelical Rev. Paula White-Cain to head the White House Faith Office, according to a new report.
That decision set off a flurry of criticism among the Christian far-right – with naming-calling, second-guessing and accusations of potentially incriminating videos on the horizon – flying from religious leaders angry at the pick.
Right-wing megachurch pastor Doug Wilson, an influential Trump supporter, described White-Cain to Religion News Service as an “erratic woman preacher who has been all over the map.”
“It’s not the greatest pick in the world,” he told the outlet, adding that she was “the kind of person that embarrassing video footage can be rolled out almost at will.”
His remarks are just the latest in a series of blowbacks set off just after Trump announced earlier this month that the Faith Office would once again be run by White-Cain, who Religion News Service said has been “long regarded as Trump’s closest religious adviser.”
“Unlike critiques from Trump and White-Cain’s numerous liberal detractors, the latest round of criticism has pitted prominent Pentecostal and charismatic Christians such as White-Cain, who have made up an important part of Trump’s evangelical Christian base, against a cadre of conservative Calvinists — including a subset influential among some of Trump’s advisers and cabinet members,” according to the religious outlet.
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Matthew Taylor, a scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies who has studied the influence of charismatic Christianity on Trump, told Religion News Service that while White-Cain faced opposition during Trump’s first term from moderate evangelicals uncomfortable with Pentecostalism, “this time the fight is more of a ‘sibling rivalry’ between different factions of the ‘Christian far-right.’”
“Paula White and her circle truly dominate the Trump advisory circles, the evangelical advisory circles,” Taylor told Religion News Service. “Now you have these kind of natalist, radical traditionalist Catholics that see an avenue to power through JD Vance, and you see these kind of Reconstructionist Calvinist-types who see an avenue through Pete Hegseth and maybe Russ Vought. So now there’s real power and policy in play.”
White-Cain served in the same position toward the end of Trump's first term and was among the speakers at the "Stop the Steal" rally on Jan. 6, 2021, before a mob of MAGA rioters attacked the Capitol.