Trump’s pick to run White House Faith Office sparks theological turf war

(RNS) — A religious row has erupted among conservative Christians over President Donald Trump’s decision to re-appoint Paula White-Cain to run the White House Faith Office, with theological fissures erupting within Trump’s Christian coalition as leaders stake out different positions on the Florida pastor.

The debate escalated on Tuesday (Feb. 19), when Doug Wilson, an influential Reformed pastor who has emerged as an oft-cited religious thinker in conservative circles, derided White-Cain, a Pentecostal pastor, on his podcast. While responding to others on his show who were critiquing White-Cain, the Idaho pastor referred to her appointment as “a bad pick for all kinds of reasons.”

In a separate interview with Religion News Service on Thursday, Wilson said he hails from a “conservative Christian quadrant that objects to women preachers in the first place,” and described White-Cain as an “erratic woman preacher who has been all over the map.”

He went on to describe White-Cain, long regarded as Trump’s closest religious adviser, as “the kind of person that embarrassing video footage can be rolled out almost at will.

“It’s not the greatest pick in the world,” he added.

The remarks are the latest in a back-and-forth that began shortly after Trump announced earlier this month that White-Cain would once again be heading his Faith Office, a reveal that concluded a week of faith-themed appearances featuring the president and the vice president. While White-Cain’s appointment was widely expected —  she served in the same position near the tail-end of Trump’s first term — news of her return to the White House sparked blowback in some conservative Christian online spaces.

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.

Matthew D. Taylor. (Courtesy photo)

Matthew Taylor, a scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies who has studied the influence of charismatic Christianity on Trump, said the broader evangelical discomfort with Pentecostalism — traditions that engage in practices such as prophecies, faith healing and speaking in tongues — has been around for some time. During Trump’s first campaign and term in office, Taylor said, it was moderate evangelicals such as Russell Moore, then a Southern Baptist, who voiced their disapproval of White-Cain as well as Trump himself.

But this time the fight is more of a “sibling rivalry” between different factions of the “Christian far-right,” Taylor said, with Calvinists such as Wilson becoming power players over the past four years, alongside stridently conservative forms of Catholicism that have garnered favor with Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert.

“Paula White and her circle truly dominate the Trump advisory circles, the evangelical advisory circles,” he said. “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.”

Efforts to reach White-Cain for comment were unsuccessful, but the criticism quickly spurred her supporters — particularly people who, like White-Cain, operate in Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions, as well as preach a prosperity gospel, or wealth-focused, theology — to publish video testimonials in her defense.

“What was the date that it became okay, in the body of Christ, all of a sudden, to trash people by name that you’ve never met?” said Jonathan Shuttlesworth, a Pentecostal pastor of Revival Today Church, who was among the first to rush to her defense, in a video posted to X. The pastor, whose church meets in both Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and in Texas, is seen as ascendant among Trump’s religious advisers, posting on Friday that he was traveling to the White House to “discuss and write national policy for religious freedom.”

My thoughts on Paula White being appointed by President Trump to the first ever White House Faith Office. pic.twitter.com/1o3GhHu5Pn

— Jonathan Shuttlesworth (@JDShuttlesworth) February 9, 2025

In his video about White-Cain, Shuttlesworth said many of her critics were “Calvinists who believe in God’s sovereignty.”

“So God made a mistake this time? I thought God knows what he’s doing and God has everything planned and we just accept what he planned. Don’t you teach that?”

Shuttlesworth later added, “maybe you’re just a jerk.”

Shuttlesworth was echoed by Lance Wallnau, a fellow charismatic Christian who prophesied Trump’s 2016 victory and hosted a campaign event featuring then-vice presidential candidate JD Vance during the 2024 campaign.

“I can’t believe all the people, mean-spirited people, upset with Trump for working with Paula White. What is up with these wackos?” Wallnau said in a Facebook Live video. “You know what it is? I think a lot of guys don’t like women preachers.”

In his interview with RNS, Wilson did not deny his opposition to women’s ordination but noted White-Cain’s appointment could be an example of Trump being “transactional.” The president, he argued, may have appointed White-Cain solely as an expression of gratitude for her long-running support, leaving her in charge of an office “he’s going to pay no attention to.”

However, Wilson said he would have preferred Trump appoint someone such as the Rev. Franklin Graham to the office, saying the president “could have done a lot better and shored up support among the more responsible, dissident-right types, as opposed to Jesus-wears-a-MAGA-hat kind of thing.”

Wilson, a self-described Christian nationalist whose profile grew during Trump’s time away from power, carries weight within Trump’s new administration. He co-founded a denomination that officially opposes women in combat and includes a church attended by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who has praised Wilson’s writings. Wilson, who appeared on programs last year hosted by Trump allies Tucker Carlson and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, has also spoken at events on Capitol Hill alongside Russell Vought, whom Trump appointed to run the Office of Management and Budget.

Russell Vought, President Donald Trump’s choice for director of the Office of Management and Budget, appears before the Senate Budget Committee during a hearing examining his nomination, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Vought was referenced on Wilson’s podcast this week by author Joe Rigney, an associate pastor at Christ Church, Wilson’s congregation. Rigney called the choice of White-Cain a “whiff” by the Trump administration but celebrated the selection of Vought, who is widely credited as the architect of Project 2025, a sweeping conservative plan for changing the federal government that has largely overlapped with Trump’s actions during his first month in office.

“Would I rather have someone with Paula White’s theology in Russ Vought’s job or would I rather have him” in the OMB, Rigney said. “And it’s like, ‘Him, because he’s actually going to do the things I want.’”

Rigney’s comments come after a week of defending Vought from criticism from alumni of Wheaton College, an evangelical school and Vought’s alma mater. When the school retracted a statement celebrating Vought’s confirmation as OMB secretary after alumni published a public letter voicing outrage, Rigney called the move “a case study in how supposedly conservative Christian organizations are hijacked and steered by the Left,” and has since championed a separate letter by conservative Wheaton alumni criticizing the school.

Asked whether he considers Vought a theological ally, Wilson said he doesn’t know enough about his personal beliefs “to pronounce on it,” but said “I would guess that we’d be on a similar page.”

Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church. (Video screen grab)

Wilson insists he is “not in the mix” when it comes to power players in Washington. Although he told RNS in an email shortly after Hegseth was confirmed that he was “very grateful” the former Fox News host was now tasked with running the U.S. military, Wilson explained on Thursday his only direct connection to the secretary of Defense is that he “knows people who know him.”

He also was willing to criticize Trump associates other than White-Cain. While he celebrated Elon Musk’s efforts to rapidly and dramatically reduce the size of the federal government, for instance, he said he hoped someone would “explain the gospel to him,” lamenting that Musk has had a number of children with women out of wedlock, which Wilson described as a “serial harem of concubines.”

Even so, the debate over White-Cain appears to have done little to dent support for Trump overall among Wilson and his supporters. Asked how he felt about the first month of Trump’s second term, Wilson was jubilant.

“It’s been Christmas every morning,” he said.