Tuesday, 22 October 2019

Paula White-Cain’s Evangelical Support Squad Isn’t as Surprising as It Seems

The movement has a long history of partnerships that transcend doctrinal divides.

There has been concern in evangelical circles recently over how some of President Trump’s key evangelical allies—including Robert Jeffress, Jack Graham, and Franklin Graham—promoted Paula White-Cain’s new book Something Greater: Finding Triumph over Trials, which released this month. (Graham deleted his tweet, though not before the incident drew the ire of various commentators and inspired a Babylon Bee parody.)

On the surface, White-Cain’s support among these conservative white Protestants is surprising. For one thing, she is a prominent prosperity preacher associated with the New Apostolic Reformation, a loosely connected group of Pentecostals and Charismatics. For decades, tongues-speaking, vision-reporting prosperity preachers like White-Cain have been a theological anathema to more traditional white evangelicals.

Some, like Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, have classified White-Cain as a “charlatan” and “heretic.” One might think Jeffress and Jack Graham, who pastor prominent Southern Baptist churches, and Franklin Graham, the leader of Samaritan’s Purse, a popular evangelical humanitarian organization (and son of Billy), would follow suit.

Paula White-Cain is also a female pastor, and by promoting her book, Jeffress and Jack Graham (two-term president of the SBC) are backing a woman who, according to their denomination, is not submitting to “those roles assigned to her by God” (at a time when others in their tradition are prominently clashing over this very issue). In addition, White-Cain is divorced, and in SBC circles, “divorce culture” represents one of ...

Continue reading...



from Christianity Today Magazine https://ift.tt/32EBA4d

No comments:

Post a Comment