President Donald Trump has no shortage of Christian leaders around him, but few are closer than his spiritual adviser Paula White, a Florida pastor and author who hails from the Prosperity Gospel wing of American Christianity and recently joined the White House Office of Public Liaison.
White’s presence has placed her ministry under a lot of scrutiny, which was renewed over the weekend when a January 5 clip surfaced in which White prays that God will “command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now.”
“We declare that anything that’s been conceived in satanic wombs, that it will miscarry, it will not be able to carry forth any plan of destruction, any plan of harm,” White can be heard praying before a crowded audience.
“We command all satanic pregnancies to miscarry right now” — Special Adviser to the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative Paula White pic.twitter.com/gtdZyGfkxy
— Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons (@GuthrieGF) January 25, 2020
White defended the prayer as metaphorical.
“I don’t normally respond but clearly this has been taken out of context,” White tweeted in response to some outraged responses. “I was praying Eph 6:12 that we wrestle not against flesh and blood. Anything that has been conceived by demonic plans, for it to be [sic] cancelled and not prevail in your life…”
Ephesians 6:12 says “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”
Still, the video received backlash. Prominent Jesuit priest James Martin tweeted that “No pregnancies are satanic. Every child is a gift from God. No one should ever pray for any woman to miscarry.”
No pregnancies are satanic. Every child is a gift from God. No one should ever pray for any woman to miscarry. No one should ever pray for evil or harm to befall another person. Jesus asked us to pray for our persecutors, not to curse them. To love our neighbors as ourselves. https://t.co/EZq9BwLV0v
— James Martin, SJ (@JamesMartinSJ) January 26, 2020
The controversy landed at a particularly thorny time for the Trump administration, coming just days after Trump became the first sitting President to attend a March for Life rally in Washington D.C. No one from the administration has commented on the video, but White has been elevated to the position of “campaign surrogate”, via a Trump campaign email.
