Prayers for Leadership: Christians Respond to Trump’s Faith Advisors
By Elizabeth Prata
You’ve heard by now, probably, that President Trump is creating the White House Faith Office led by Paula White. He began the initiative in 2018. One of the people included in the inside of that initiative was Justin Dean, former communications officer for Driscoll’s Mars Hill church, which is also not a good sign-
Dean said on X,
“Trump started the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative. He would invite faith leaders to speak into policies and decisions, and sought out their opinions. This led to major prison reform, disaster aid for churches, adoption and foster care reform, and further protections for religious liberty, among others… most notably the appointment of common sense pro- life judges, and the decision on Roe v Wade.”
Good stuff. That is something to praise the Lord for.
The bad part is this: Dean continued, “This initiative included Paula White, Greg Laurie, Jentezen Franklin, Franklin Graham, and many others from all walks of faith and beliefs.”
All those people mentioned are false teachers. Dean continued,
“We have participated in almost monthly calls with political leaders, many times with President Trump joining the calls. He would ask for and listen to our advice, and let us pray over him. We met for many in-person gatherings”…
Good to know that they are so heavily involved, so we can be aware and pray against bad religious advice. We can also pray that the President is searching for truth and will eventually come to the true faith. The alternative is that the bad religious advice he’s receiving will be along the lines of the verse in Matthew 23:15,
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”
Sadly, Dean then said this:
“Trump may not be the best example of a Christian leader, but he does respect and understand the importance of surrounding himself with Christian leaders, and he has proven over the years that he listens and has made many great actions based on their advice. This group has been more influential over his policies and decisions than you’ll ever realize.”
President Trump is not a Christian, nor are the others. It’s good to know, though, that he seems to understand and respect Christianity, such as he understands it. I am old enough to have seen many political leaders simply USING Christianity for their own gain. I don’t sense that here. Of course I am sad that the President’s soul-searching is leading him down this broad path. Perhaps the Lord has a course correction in mind later to the narrow road. I don’t know. The Lord knows.
It’s really no different than Obama being advised by false teacher Rick Warren, or most the the previous generation of Presidents being advised by Billy Graham, who was also false.
What true Christians can do, now that you know how deeply these wolves are involved in governing activities, is to pray for true shepherds to be allowed near the President.
My advice is this: I’ve seen a lot of shock and outrage and distress over Donald Trump’s choice of Paula White. Don’t be shocked. Don’t be distressed. Don’t be outraged. What else can we expect from a non-believer? Why are Christians surprised when non-saved people act like non-saved people? We know Trump is not a believer, so we shouldn’t expect him to act like one. He doesn’t know how to choose a righteous man to help him along the path of righteousness. He can do no less.
What we can pray for is that these wolves will at least even accidentally give the gospel to the President and for him to be saved. And, for him to continue works that align with God’s values, if not the faith, as in opposing abortion, major prison reform, disaster aid for churches, adoption and foster care reform, further protections for religious liberty and so on.
The Lord raised President Trump at this time to lead. He has His reasons. We should do like we always do, pray, watch, and pray some more.
