Twisting Scripture for Profit: Exposing Paula White-Cain’s Prosperity Gospel

Are you aware that President Trump appointed a prosperity preacher as his director of the Faith Office, who, just a few years ago, was under investigation by the IRS and the US Senate for the lavish lifestyle she was living with donor money and then filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy?

In this article, I’d like to raise three theological concerns about Paula White and explain why I believe Trump’s choice does not reflect strong, consistent Christian leadership. It is imperative to have a leader whose teachings promote sound doctrine and foster genuine spiritual growth.

To be fair to Paula, I want to point out that she deserves recognition for her strong advocacy of religious freedom and pro-life policies. Every Christian can appreciate and support these critical issues, so I am thankful to see Paula holding firm to these biblical truths.

Theological Concern #1: Paula White-Cain’s Prosperity Gospel

You might be wondering why Trump appointed Paula as the Senior Advisor of the White House Faith Office. Well, they do have history, and many in the Evangelical world support Paula’s claims that she was the one who led Trump to Jesus Christ. I hope that is true. However, one significant individual that Trump and Paula share in common is their mutual admiration for Norman Vincent Peale, the famed author of “The Power of Positive Thinking” and “The Power of Positive Living.”

This makes sense because Paula’s teaching revolves around "sowing seeds of blessings” or urging people to give money to her ministry to be blessed in return.

Her prosperity preaching is very appealing and sounds good until you read what the Bible says.

A few years ago, while preaching from the resurrection of Lazarus passage (John 11:38-44), Paula offered her congregation at New Destiny Christian Center in Florida to give $1,144, referencing John 11:44, to receive a “resurrection seed.”

Here’s another example of her prosperity teachings mixed with positive thinking, which she posted on X: “Your words are containers for power, and by the words you speak, you frame your world!"

These two examples of Paula’s prosperity doctrine distort the essence of genuine faith and manipulate vulnerable individuals by linking their financial status to their spiritual worth. This can pressure individuals into believing that a lack of wealth is a sign of weak faith, which is misleading and harmful.

Theological Concern #2: Paula White-Cain’s Manipulation of Faith

At The River Church in Tampa, FL., Paul declared on stage, “Wherever I go, God rules. When I walk on White House grounds, God walks on White House grounds. When I walked in The River, God walked in The River. When I go into the dry cleaners, that dry cleaning place becomes holy. I have every right and authority to declare the White House as holy ground because I was standing there and where I stand is holy."

Paula conflates her personal presence with God's presence. Nowhere in the Bible do we see any prophet or apostle making such audacious and heretical claims. God is not contingent upon where we go or what we do. It is very dangerous to associate our holiness with that of God, who is holy. When God told Moses to take off his sandals, it wasn’t because Moses was holy. The ground was holy because of God’s presence (see Exodus 3:5).

Furthermore, Paula’s self-declaration is nothing more than pride and wishful thinking. When we look into the pages of Scripture, we find that God, whose name is Holy, declares, “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite” (Isaiah 57:15).

Paula is promoting a misguided understanding of God's nature, the nature of redeemed believers, and the essence of faith itself.

Theological Concern #3: Paula White-Cain’s Misinterpretations of Scripture

If there is one thing to caution you about, it is that when listening to Paula, you should approach her “interpretations” of the Bible with care and consider proper hermeneutics that take a historical-grammatical approach to the structural integrity of the biblical text.

Paula loves to cherry-pick promises in the Bible, as seen in her Passover sermon on Exodus 23.

"I believe that when you honor God on Passover, starting on April 12, at sundown through Good Friday on the 18th, and concluding on Easter Sunday, you can receive these seven supernatural blessings for you and your house. According to Exodus 23, God will assign an angel to you. He'll be an enemy to your enemies. He'll give you prosperity. He'll take sickness away from you. He will give you long life. He'll bring increase in inheritance, and He'll give a special year of blessing. You're not doing this to get something, but you're doing it in honor to God, realizing what you can receive."

Extracting promises from Exodus 23 and applying them directly to modern Christians without considering the historical and covenantal context distorts the passage's original meaning while replacing the original audience—the Hebrews!

If you read Exodus 23 carefully, you will find that the seven promises Paula deceitfully proclaims are not what God promised Israel at all. This level of eisegesis from Paula goes far beyond mere misinterpretation of the text; it is her deliberate act of putting words in God’s mouth. And that, my friend, is blasphemous behavior!

Paula is not a biblical theologian. She is a prosperity preacher whose agenda seeks to impose her modern framework of false teaching on the Bible. Learning how Paula twists the scriptures will help keep you from disaster and preserve your faith from bad doctrine.