Heh. I knew Horton through Jim Belcher ("Deep Church") at Jim's singles group.
Personally I consider Reformed theology more subtly toxic than the prosperity
gospel...
E
Sent from my iPhone
> On Jan 20, 2017, at 07:44, BILROJ via Centroids: The Center of the Radical
> Centrist Community <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>
> Christianity Today
>
> The Story Behind Trump’s Controversial Prayer Partner
> What Paula White’s Washington moment implies for the prosperity gospel’s
> future.
> Kate Shellnutt/ JANUARY 19, 2017
> Donald Trump discovered Paula White the same way legions of fans and
> followers did: on television.
>
> Fifteen years of prayer, visits, and friendship later, the Florida preacher
> now serves as the top spiritual adviser for America’s president-elect and,
> essentially, his guide to the country’s religious conservatives.
>
> Her behind-the-scenes counsel became news as Trump prepared for the
> presidency. It was White who arranged a meeting at the Trump Tower for fellow
> televangelists (including Kenneth and Gloria Copeland, David Jeremiah, and
> Jan Crouch) to anoint him in prayer back in 2015. She defended the sincerity
> of his faith to fellow Christians, and continues to network Trump with
> members of his evangelical advisory board to discuss appointments and policy
> going into office.
>
> “I’m the bridge-builder,” said White, pastor of New Destiny Christian Center
> near Orlando, in an interview with Christianity Today. “It really, truly is
> the board and the wisdom of so many great men and women of God.”
>
> But White’s involvement carries major baggage, especially for evangelical
> leaders who have for years lamented the endlessly positive health and wealth
> theology associated with her ministry (even doing so in rap). Critical voices
> within the church worry that White’s political prominence will push the
> prosperity gospel mainstream—or prove that it’s already there.
>
> “The massive congregations and television and Internet audiences that people
> like Joel Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Paula White, T. D. Jakes, and others enjoy
> show us that this theology is already mainstream,” said Leah Payne, who
> directs the Center for Pentecostal-Charismatic Theology Practice at George
> Fox University. “I don't know that Paula White's position will normalize
> these teachings any more or less than they already are.”
>
> While such preachers regularly make their way onto Oprah and CNN, they aren’t
> typical broad-appeal picks for a political event such as the inauguration,
> Payne said. White, who will pray alongside five other clergy, even told CT
> there’s “a possibility” of her assuming an official role in his
> administration.
>
> As Kate Bowler, the Duke University researcher and author of Blessed: A
> History of the American Prosperity Gospel, told ThinkProgress: “This is the
> culmination of several decades of building political capital within the
> prosperity gospel movement. This is a new political moment for the prosperity
> gospel .”
>
> White recognizes the significance of her role at Friday’s inauguration: a
> reading and invocation lasting about two to three minutes.
>
> “I’ve really been seeking God and asking the Lord for wisdom through his Word
> and to guide me and lead me because this is a huge responsibility,” said
> White, who has looked to her staff, family, and fellow board members like
> Southern Baptist pastor Jack Graham for assistance. “As I’m doing this, it’s
> not just myself. I’ve sought my spiritual covering from those who mentor me.”
>
> A leading critic, Michael Horton, theology professor at Westminster Seminary,
> warned in The Washington Post that White’s role in Trump’s inauguration and
> administration should “deeply trouble” American evangelicals.
>
> “You’d be hard-pressed to see someone like Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham
> cozying up to Paula White. The lines are being blurred with their sons,”
> Horton told CT. Jerry Falwell Jr. was one of Trump’s earliest evangelical
> endorsements, and Franklin Graham will also be speaking at his inauguration.
>
> “I think that people like White and Osteen are able to tone down the
> heretical aspects of the Word of Faith teaching,” he said. “But make no
> mistake: the toxic doctrines are there.”
>
> A movement within Pentecostalism, Word of Faith emphasizes positivity and
> prosperity; it’s often summarized by outsiders as “name it and claim it.”
> Horton considers elements of this approach to religion to be “part of the
> American DNA.”
>
> “We’re all pretty good people who, with the right data, inspiration, and
> technology, can be and do whatever we want,” he said, describing the modern
> American worldview. “So when Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, and other Word
> of Faith teachers created a whole theology for the ‘prosperity gospel,’ there
> was already a big audience.”
>
> White resists the negative characterizations of the prosperity gospel
> movement. “There’s a perception … that the prosperity gospel means that you
> ask for money and promise people they’re going to get something in return,
> which I absolutely do not do,” she told CT. “Do I believe that God is some
> sugar daddy or Santa Claus? Absolutely no.”
>
> This month, she invited followers to “sow a month’s pay, a week’s pay … a
> day’s pay” as an annual first fruits offering to start 2017, saying: “It is a
> seed for the harvest I am believing for in the coming year. And God always
> provides!”
>
> White, who leads a majority African American congregation, found herself once
> again explaining her beliefs following sharply worded concerns during the
> election cycle from conservative Trump detractors, including Southern Baptist
> Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission president Russell Moore and
> conservative radio host Erick Erickson.
>
> “I know you label me a heretic, a prosperity preacher. Have you ever asked
> me? Have you listened to 100 sermons? Have you really read?” said White, who
> came to faith at 18 after years of abuse following her father’s suicide.
>
> “Yes, there are things my 50-year-old self would never do or say that my
> 20-year-old self did,” she told CT. “That doesn’t mean my 20-year-old self
> was that doctrinally off, [but] I’ve never denied the Trinity.”
>
> While most inauguration picks elicit some level of controversy, the
> theological back-and-forth over White reveals a divide even within the
> tradition she is portrayed to represent.
>
> “White is a lightning rod in Pentecostal and evangelical circles,” said
> Payne, whose research focuses on women within Pentecostalism. “But that seems
> in step with many of Trump’s choices for advisers—religious or otherwise.”
>
> Prior to making headlines with Trump, White was associated with mentor
> Jakes—at one timeknown for advocating Jesus-only or “Oneness”
> Pentecostalism—and with a group of flush televangelists investigated for
> financial mismanagement by a US Senate committee.
>
> In some ways, White has gotten used to the criticism. After spending a
> majority of her career in high-profile ministry, the 50-year-old has defended
> her teachings, relationships, finances, and faith for decades.
>
> She and ex-husband Randy White grew Tampa’s Without Walls International
> Church into aprominent megachurch in the years leading up to their 2007
> divorce. Their separation coincided with news reports alleging they took
> advantage of congregants’ generosity to pad their lush lifestyle, including a
> $2.1 million waterfront mansion and a $3.5 million Trump Tower condo in New
> York. The church halved in attendance and faced foreclosure, though White
> returned to leadership.
>
> “I know there are people who believe in the prosperity gospel. As someone who
> covered religion for 30-plus years, I can tell you there aren’t a lot of good
> stories in the end,” said Michelle Bearden, the former Tampa Tribune reporter
> who investigated the Whites’ ministry. “Because they had charisma and charm
> and these great backstories, people were mesmerized and sucked into it.”
>
> White has reiterated that the inquiry into her ministry launched by Iowa
> Republican senator Chuck Grassley from 2007 to 2011 never found any
> wrongdoing.
>
> Bearden pointed out that officials were unable to obtain adequate financial
> documentation to complete their investigation. “They never got full financial
> disclosure from the Whites,” she said. “I think they ran out of steam.”
>
> Grassley ended up handing over the accountability effort to the Evangelical
> Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), whose commission recommended no
> new laws, favoring better enforcement of existing laws.
>
> The ECFA sets forth responsible stewardship standards; among them, the agency
> requires that organizations establish “reasonable expectations” for donors;
> avoid manipulating potential donors with misleading statements; and make a
> reasonable effort to ensure their giving doesn’t place them in financial
> hardship.
>
> In a statement issued in early January, White assured fellow Christians that
> she rejects “any theology that doesn’t affirm or acknowledge the entirety of
> scriptural teaching about God’s presence and blessing in suffering as much as
> in times of prosperity.”
>
> She knows quite a bit about the former, describing 2007 as the year “all hell
> broke lose” for her personally and professionally.
>
> “The greatest blessing of my life is that God loved me enough to reduce me to
> Christ,” said White in her interview with CT. In the years after, she moved
> on to New Destiny and got remarried, to Journey songwriter Jonathan Cain.
>
> White brought up how God uses people “in the marketplace, in the White House,
> wherever.” She said she has seen how Trump approaches the oath of office he
> will take Friday as something “very holy and very sacred.”
>
> “My interest is God and people,” she said, laughing at where her unexpected
> friendship with the billionaire businessman had led her. “If he uses that in
> the realm of politics, then I believe that is the fulfillment of the church.”
>
> Leading up to the inauguration, Nicola Menzie—founder of Faithfully Magazine,
> which reports on Christians of color—described how the “seed” model used by
> White and others tends to harm African American congregants in particular.
>
> “Her consistent abuse of Scripture to solicit specific donation amounts from
> supporters is beyond troubling,” said Menzie, noting how White’s emails have
> pulled from numbers in the Bible to suggest donation amounts ($229 to
> represent 1 Chronicles 22:9, for example).
>
> “Do I believe that God is involved in my finances? Absolutely,” White told
> CT, “because I honor God with a tithe. I worship God with an offering.
>
> “I don’t get it all. That doesn’t mean that God is going to give me this
> much. He is whatever supply I need.”
>
> White’s recent statement also addressed concerns over her theological beliefs
> about God, saying:
>
> I believe and have always believed in the exclusivity and divinity of Jesus
> Christ, his saving grace and substitutionary atonement made available to all
> by his death on the cross. I believe and have always believed that he was
> buried and on the third day rose again. I believe and have always believed in
> the Holy Trinity. I believe and have always believed in the virgin birth, and
> the second coming.
>
> “Words like Jesus, sin, grace, atonement, salvation, and Trinity are just
> slogans,” said Horton to CT in response. “You have to see how [White] and
> other Word of Faith teachers interpret them within their distorted framework.”
>
> White sees herself growing in faith, and stands by her statement. “We all go
> from glory to glory. I look at my life and think of all the people the Lord
> has brought into my life over the years,” she said. “Every time, God’s
> saying, ‘I want to take you deeper. I want to show your more.’ Revelation is
> always progressive.”
>
> According to Menzie, part of the Christian life is reckoning with the
> disconnect, big or small, between what we say we believe, what we strive for,
> and what we do, “I would not focus alone on what White or any Christian
> minister says, especially if they say all the right things,” she said. “What
> we do while standing on that Christian confession should also be examined.”
>
> White said she worries that continued claims of heresy and false teaching
> that bubble up against her online only reflect poorly on the body of Christ.
>
> “We are all to be one church, one bride,” she said. “If you really believe
> that I am a heretic, if you really believe that, there’s a biblical
> responsibility to come to me … and that’s never happened.”
>
> --
> --
> Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
> <[email protected]>
> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
> Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
>
> ---
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to [email protected].
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
--
--
Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community
<[email protected]>
Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism
Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
