Paula White and Beni Johnson: The dominionist lunatics behind Trump and the January 6 Capitol fiasco

Peggy Wehmeyer in The Dallas Morning News:

If evangelical Christians are called to live in truth, why do so many believe political conspiracies? :

In the middle of the Capitol siege on Jan. 6, I received a text message from a close friend in Colorado who’s been skeptical of my evangelical faith for years. He wanted me to see the picture on his TV screen: a giant Jesus 2020 flag waving beside protesters storming the nation’s capital. “I guess Jesus supports this mob!” he wrote. “Good to know.” Moments later, my daughter, alarmed, texted me a Facebook post from a friend calling on everyone to repent, for Jesus has come to the rescue. ...

When Trump became president, a rapidly growing faith movement began stirring political uprising in the evangelical church.

Largely unnoticed by any of the media, and rooted in charismatic and Pentecostal traditions, this informal network of mega churches counts its members in the tens of millions, many of them in their 20 and 30s.

Unlike other evangelicals, they believe their leaders are modern-day apostles and prophets who get their orders directly from God. Their mission is to usher in the Kingdom of God on Earth now, by, as they put it, “taking dominion” over politics, business and culture.

Trump caught on to the size and power of the movement quickly. When he lost the election in November, his spiritual adviser, Florida-based prophet Paula White, called for a “bold spiritual army” to restore him to power.

From California to Colorado to Texas, networks of apostolic prophets insisted that Trump won the election and was chosen by God to restore Christian values to America. Disagree with the prophets, according to this thinking, and you’re opposing God. If I didn’t know better, I’d ask them: If God is speaking through you and tells a lie, which one of you is the huckster?

One of the most influential churches in this movement is the Bethel Church in Redding, Calif., where spiritual leaders Bill and Beni Johnson oversee an 11,000-member ministry compound, including the popular Bethel Music label and the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Thousands of students enroll at schools like this to learn how to miraculously heal the sick, prophesy, and cast out demons.

Following the attack on the Capitol, Beni Johnson tweeted, “Pick up your sword and stand. Where’s your faith friends, is it in what God said or in a man? Find those seasoned prophets who are still standing and saying God has this!” Twitter quickly suspended Johnson’s account.

Trump hasn't lied 5,000 times, he's just channeling Norman Vincent Peale's power of positive thinking and the prosperity gospel's power of positive confession

Too bad more people don't understand this.

This guy certainly doesn't. 

Meet Daniel Dale, the man with the Herculean job of keeping track of Trump’s lies:

Usually, the lying is Trump ad-libbing — it’s him deviating from his text. In that [campaign] case, immigration lies in particular were being written into his rally speeches.

In many cases, I think it is unstrategic. I think it’s just Trump being Trump. I don’t know if it’s his natural state, or if it’s a learned behavior, after lying successfully as a real estate guy and lying successfully as a playboy celebrity to get his name in the tabloids. ...

I do use the word lie, but for my database, I call it a database of false claims, because I think while a significant percentage are lies, I'm not sure about all of them.

As we know with this president, he’s often confused or ignorant of policy specifics. And so I don’t know that he intentionally attempted to deceive with all 4,900-plus. So many of those are lies, but I can’t say that for all of them.

This guy, on the other hand, does.

Commentary: Prosperty gospel may be United States' new civil religion:

In terms of religion, this inauguration exhibits the confluence of two major currents of indigenous American spirituality.

One stream is represented by Norman Vincent Peale's longtime bestseller "The Power of Positive Thinking" (1952). The famous Manhattan pastor is Trump's tenuous connection to Christianity, having heard the preacher frequently in his youth. For Peale and his protege, the late Robert Schuller of Crystal Cathedral fame, the gospel of Christ's death for human sin and resurrection for justification and everlasting life was transformed into a "feel-good" therapy. Self-esteem was the true salvation.

Another stream is represented by the most famous TV preachers, especially those associated with the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). Kenneth Copeland, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen and Paula White are the stars of this movement, known as Word of Faith. ...

Besides throwing out doctrines like the Trinity and confusing ourselves with God, the movement teaches that Jesus went to the cross not to bring forgiveness of our sins but to get us out of financial debt, not to reconcile us to God but to give us the power to claim our prosperity, not to remove the curse of death, injustice and bondage to ourselves but to give us our best life now. White says emphatically that Jesus is "not the only begotten Son of God," just the first. We're all divine and have the power to speak worlds into existence. ...

Some representatives, like Osteen, offer an easy-listening version that seems as harmless as a fortune cookie. It's when he tries to interpret the Bible that he gets into trouble, as in his latest book, "The Power of I Am." "Romans 4 says to 'call the things that are not as though they were,' " he says, but the biblical passage is actually referring to God.

But it's not really about God. In fact, one gets the impression that God isn't necessary at all in the system. God set up these spiritual laws and if you know the secrets, you're in charge of your destiny. You "release wealth," as they often put it, by commanding it to come to you.

"Anyone who tells you to deny yourself is from Satan," White told a TBN audience in 2007. Oops. It was Jesus who said "anyone who would come after me" must "deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Matthew 16:24).

Most evangelical pastors I know would shake their heads at all of this.

Like others WaPo calls Paula White, picked by Trump for an inauguration prayer, controversial

White and new husband Jonathan Cain of Journey fame both on marriage #3 

In "Paula White, prosperity preacher once investigated by Senate, is a controversial pick for inauguration" :

When White’s role in the swearing-in ceremony was reported Wednesday, the Daily Beast said in a headline, “Shady Pastor to Pray With Trump at Inauguration.” Erick Erickson, an influential Christian writer who strongly opposed Trump during his campaign, fumed on his website: “An Actual Trinity-Denying Heretic Will Pray at Trump’s Inauguration.”

By their fruitcakes ye shall know them: Hotty pastorette close to Donald Trump is a prosperity gospel heretic says Russell Moore

Here:

“Paula White is a charlatan and recognized as a heretic by every orthodox Christian, of whatever tribe,” read a recent tweet from Russell Moore, a prominent Southern Baptist leader and vocal Trump critic, who wasn’t available for an interview.

Moore stated his objection to what White represents clearly already last October, here:

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, is disputing conventional wisdom that Trump is hugely popular with born again Christians, insisting those actually in his camp follow the “dangerous false teaching of the prosperity gospel.”