Oh No!! Are Demons Coming After Trump?

Rev. Paula White thinks so

Televangelist Rev. Paula White has been named to head up the newly announced White House Faith office.

White is a Christian nationalist, according to Pastor and civil rights leader Rev. William Barber, who has been “enabling injustice” with her “Biblical interpretations” that “echo slaveholder religious theory.”

“If we don’t help people name & condemn #SlaveholderReligion, they are left to believe this is the teaching of the church,” Barber wrote on X. “Trump & the GOP have elevated Christian nationalism to a place where many confuse it w/ orthodox faith.”

White has turned her attention to backing Trump’s prejudices, calling Black Lives Matter the “anti-Christ” and denying Jesus was a refugee. “Well, Jesus was a refugee,’” White told Christian Broadcast Network, but “I think so many people have taken biblical scriptures out of context on this.”

I believe the ‘taking biblical scriptures out of context’ is on the other foot, here, White.

White delivered an opening prayer before Trump’s re-election campaign kickoff, saying “demonic networks” had aligned themselves against the Republican. In the wake of Trump’s 2020 defeat, she has held multiple “prayer emergencies” to battle the “demonic confederacies” that were supposedly trying to steal the election.

So, you want to talk demons, Rev. White? I fully believe that white Christian nationalism, that is #SlaveholderReligion per Rev. Barber, is demonic.

As I have written before on Substack, the demonic is temptation. It is the desire to be and do the worst in human life and deceive yourself that you are doing holy work. Temptation always includes self-deception. After all, as the Bible says, Satan is “a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)

All through the “Church Fathers,” the demonic is very minutely examined. Thomas Aquinas, in the Summa, argues that demons “assail” human beings and “instigate them to sin.” They do this by appealing to humanity’s weaknesses, especially pride.

Well, that certainly fits with our politics today.

“Proud Boys,” a white male hate group, just recently lost their trademarked name to Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington DC that they had vandalized. And no one can sell, transfer, license or dispose of the Proud Boys' trademarked name without permission from the church or the court, according to the judgment. Some justice there.

The development of ‘White Pride” as overt racism purports to be ‘hate-free’ racism, attempting to align whites with oppressed minorities and promoting ideas of ‘heritage-preservation’ as a cloak for virulent racial prejudice.

“White Pride” is the mirror opposite of what has come to be known as “Pride” and the development of “Pride” months to celebrate LGBTQI identity. These efforts do not belong in this category of self-deceptive pride. Instead, “Pride” for LGBTQI persons affirms a healthy identity in the face of demeaning prejudice.

Pride in its demonic sense is inflating your own self-worth by denigrating whole groups of other human beings as unworthy of respect and certainly unworthy of equal participation in our democracy.

Here’s what needs your attention, Rev. White. The demons of the temptation to prejudice, hatred and self-deception are already in the White House. Confronting those and turning them to diversity, equity and inclusion would be a work worthy of being called a “faith” office.

But instead we are seeing the virulent attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and the DEI firings are meant to drive out racial ethnic minorities, women of all races, and the differently abled including veterans among others who are perfectly qualified and have been excluded because of racism, sexism, abelism and other forms of prejudice.

There is an attempt to change the meaning of DEI to “unqualified” and to have “qualified” mean “white male.” Any white male.

That is truly demonic.

Image Credit: https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-personal-pastor-paula-white-to-officially-join-white-house-nyt/