If it is difficult to figure out why it is that these well known evangelists and pastors are so willing to completely abandon Christian orthodoxy in order to be seen with Trump, well, it's not that hard to figure out, really. It's money.
If you were scratching your head, figuring out how it was that Samaritan's Purse showed up at some disaster, pretty close to the front of the line, it's not because they are so spiritual, their desire to help is greater than their fear of danger. It's that Samaritan's Purse gets a gigantic check in the neighborhood of $80 million from FEMA to provide disaster relief services. It's pretty simple, really. There is no way they could provide the scope of the services they do without that assistance, and it was during the Trump administration, back prior to 2020, that they first started using Samaritan's Purse to help out.
And of course, Samaritan's Purse won't be among those whose federal checks are being slashed to save money to give tax breaks to billionaires. Franklin Graham has been a loyal Trump sycophant, setting aside his Christian convictions to join the world of denial and apostasy in order to benefit from the support he delivers to Trump. It's always a quid pro quo with these kinds of "evangelists" who peddle a diluted and distorted form of the Christian gospel for money.
A Direct Smack in the Face to Conservative Evangelical Pastors Who Support Trump
One of these days, news headlines will be talking about some overweight Southern Baptist pastor whose head exploded from the frustration and angst he's had to hold back and not speak up in order not to appear critical of Trump. These guys have given up the entire core foundation of the Christian gospel to give their unqualified support to a man who hates their faith and shows his contempt for it by humiliating preachers, making them keep their convictions to themselves while he demonstrates loud and clear that he has no respect for Christianity and no intention of accepting a genuine, Evangelical conversion experience.
There are two specific points where Trump's choice of a spiritual advisor, which left out all of the sycophants from conservative Evangelicalism, goes completely against conservative Evangelical convictions. One is the fact that in conservative Evangelicalism, especially in the United States, women are not permitted in the pastorate. They cannot be ordained as ministers, and cannot serve in any capacity that even resembles spiritual leadership. Churches that have women on staff relegate them to pre-school, children's ministry and mission support groups and ladies circles. They do not teach Sunday school classes with men in them, nor can they lead worship or preach from behind the church's "sacred desk."
So Trump's choice of an ordained woman, who calls herself a "prophetess," is, by the conservative Evangelical definition, a serious departure from Biblical truth. This is something that causes denominations to break fellowship with churches who do this, but don't expect any courage like that to come from spineless Evangelical Trumpies.
The other is that Paula White is, by every conservative, Evangelical definition of the word, a theological and doctrinal heretic. Her emphasis on the exercise of prophetic, miraculous "spiritual gifts" is, in Evangelical theology, a completely backward approach to the Christian gospel. Her belief that revelation continues to come from God, via practices such as speaking in tongues, which can supercede biblical revelation is directly in opposition to conservative Evangelican beliefs that the Bible is the sole authority for Christian faith and practice, and is without error and infallible. While there are those in the Pentecostal branch of conservative Evangelicalism that accept miraculous sign gifts, the idea that revelation is ongoing, and that only a few select "prophets" are qualified to interpret it is heresy.
She has been labelled a cultist by many of those in the Evangelical churches and denominations, and is considered as a false prophet. But she was chosen by Trump to be his spiritual advisor, precisely because that's the kind of theology that doesn't require accountability or repentance. And while I can't name a single Evangelical denomination that would not consider her a heretic and a cultist, I haven't heard any Evangelical leaders fuming or griping about her being chosen, again, to lead the White House faith liaison office, like so many of his right wing religious sycophants want to do.
Trump clearly has no respect or consideration for the beliefs and convictions of his Evangelical supporters, and he is clueless when it comes to what his Evangelical supporters believe and value. If he had any respect for them at all, other than seeing them as a vote delivering machine, he would have picked someone like Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, or even Franklin Graham, who has a known name and pedigree among the conservative, Evangelical community.
But they, are also making a clear choice. They are demonstrating that their loyalty to Trump runs deeper than their loyalty to Jesus Christ or the Christian gospel. They are willing to set aside principles and convictions that they have used, in the past, to define who they are and what they claim to believe, in order to stay on the Trump train, and that makes them pseudo-Christian hypocrites. Most Evangelicals will not recognize or identify churches that call women to the ordained ministry, or that believe in continuous revelation as Christian, and will not fellowship or work with them, believing them to be deluded and influenced by modern culture. But those who are caught up in Trump's right wing extremism are willing to abandon these core beliefs.
Confusing Right Wing Politics With Christian Doctrine Creates a Powerful Delusion
The gospel writer Matthew records Jesus saying, "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the road and broad is the gate that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. [Matthew 7:13-14] Relying on one's own efforts to be "religious," and being self-righteous doesn't cause convictions and beliefs to run deep. Depending on outward appearances and religious rituals are the result of a Christian expression that is built on intellectual adherence to a set of doctrines and beliefs, rather than dependence on the actual practice of convictions that are produced by genuine conviction and belief.
There are a lot of people who have found that the loose structure and lack of a system of accountability and responsibility that is afforded by the independent and autonomous nature of most of Evangelicalism is a quick and easy way to make money and use it to enhance personal power and influence. That kind of power was one of the temptations of Jesus, according to the gospel narrative, symbolic of what is a very common human temptation. Among conservative Evangelicals, there are a lot of Kings, like Paula White, who are the absolute rulers of their "kingdoms." usually megachurches where their word as pastor is unquestioned.
Jesus, and the Apostles in the first century, went to great lengths to distinguish the Christian gospel as a lifestyle, with values motivated by conviction, not by intellectual assent to a set of doctrines, or driven by fear and superstition, nor as an instrument or tool of government for political control and civil obedience. Nor was there ever any intention to repeat or re-establish the old Jewish theocracy, as many of those who lived in Judea and Galilee at the time envisioned, a conquering Messiah who would throw out the Romans and re-establish David's throne. Jesus made it clear that the "Kingdom" he would establish, as an heir to David's throne himself, would be a spiritual one, not a military empire.
The Apostle Paul said, "They perish because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion, so that they will believe the lie, and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth." [2 Thessalonians 2:11]
The Apostle Jude warned church leaders to be on the lookout for intruders whose purpose was to subvert the Christian church.
"For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you," he writes. "They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ, our only sovereign and Lord." [Jude v. 4, NIV]
What White believes and preaches is that riches, wealth and prosperity are signs of God's blessings, a quid pro quo, if you will, that he provides in exchange for righteous behavior. Connected to that is the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation, and that it is the world's richest and most powerful country as a direct result of God's blessing, provided based on its collective righteousness. But that collective righteousness is being threatened, in their minds, by liberalism. Because we have legalized abortion, and allow same-sex marriage, and do not jail and execute transgendered persons God is going to remove our prosperity. And so, it takes a move toward dependence on government to force the unrighteous to get in line and stop endangering everyone else's ability to get rich.
But there are no such quid pro quos in the Christian gospel. Redemption, or salvation, which is the result of Christian conversion, does not result in a guarantee of financial wealth and prosperity. The list of what it does result in can be found in Matthew 5:3-11. It's a lifestyle that, if genuinely applied and lived out, is visible by the values it produces.
Wealth and power are powerful delusions. It's not so hard to see why Trump prefers this kind of spiritual advisor.
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