# Paula White

Paula Michelle White-Cain (née Furr; born April 20, 1966) is an American televangelist, apostolic leader in the Independent Charismatic movement, and a proponent of prosperity theology.
White was chair of the evangelical advisory board to Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. White delivered the invocation at his inauguration, on January 20, 2017. White is the first female clergy member to deliver the invocation. In November 2019, Trump appointed her special advisor to the Faith and Opportunity Initiative at the Office of Public Liaison.
From 2014 until May 2019, White was senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center, in Apopka, Florida, a nondenominational, multicultural megachurch. White was formerly the co-pastor of Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Florida, a church she co-founded with pastor and then-husband Randy White in 1991.
On February 7, 2025, Donald Trump announced the creation of the White House Faith Office, to be led by White.

## Early life

White was born Paula Michelle Furr in Tupelo, Mississippi, the daughter of Myra Joanelle and Donald Paul Furr III. Her parents owned a toy and craft store. Donald and Myra Furr's marriage began to fail when White was five years old. White's mother left Tupelo and took her to Memphis; her separation from her husband and his subsequent suicide drove White, her brother, and her mother into poverty. White's mother became an alcoholic. While she worked, caregivers looked after her daughter. White has said that she was sexually and physically abused between the ages of six and thirteen by different people on different occasions. White has said that during that time, she suffered from bulimia.
White's mother married a two-star admiral in the United States Navy when White was nine years old. Her family moved to the Washington, D.C. area when her stepfather was stationed at the National Naval Medical Center. White graduated from Seneca Valley High School in Germantown, Maryland.
While living in Maryland in 1984, White converted to Christianity at the Damascus Church of God. White later claimed to have received a vision from God shortly after her conversion.

## Career
### Without Walls International Church

The Tampa Christian Center was founded in Tampa, Florida, by the then-married Paula and Randy White in 1991. The church struggled financially and could not afford to pay the Whites a salary for the first two years. The couple lived on government assistance and the handouts of others. From 1991 to 1998, the church changed locations three times until it secured the property at 2511 North Grady Avenue in Tampa and changed the name of the church to Without Walls International Church.
While the church held services in an outdoor tent in 1999, it reported 5,000 attendees a week and 10,000 ministered to outside the church by 230 outreach ministries.
Without Walls International Church purchased the property next door, at 3860 West Columbus Drive, to expand its Tampa campus. The property acquired was a Canada Dry warehouse, which was remodeled and became the church's main sanctuary until September 2014.
In 2002, Without Walls International Church expanded by purchasing the defunct Carpenter's Home Church location in Lakeland, Florida. At the time, the church reported 14,000 members and 200 ministries, including job training, evangelism for public housing projects, and a teen club. Without Walls International Church also began to hold Saturday night services at Carpenter's Home Church in Lakeland, renting the property. Carpenter's Home Church would later be purchased by Without Walls International Church in 2005 for $8 million, with the church renamed Without Walls Central Church.
In 2004, Without Walls International Church reported a congregation of 20,000, the largest congregation in the area and the seventh-largest church in the United States. An audit later made public by a United States Senate committee chaired by Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley showed that Without Walls received $150 million from 2004 to 2006. The Senate report found the church White operated with her now ex-husband spent tax-exempt ministry funds one year to pay nearly $900,000 for the couple's waterfront mansion, over a million dollars in salaries to family members and paid for the Whites' private jet. White and her church did not cooperate with the investigation. In 2011, Grassley issued a report outlining his committee's findings but took no additional action.
On July 12, 2009, White became the senior pastor of the church she had co-founded, replacing her former husband, Randy White, who stated that he was stepping down as pastor for health reasons but would remain connected with the church in a different position.
On January 1, 2011, after the resignation of Scott Thomas, White became the senior pastor of the Without Walls Central Church in Lakeland, Florida, making her the pastor of both locations. In August 2011, services ceased when electricity was disconnected after the church failed to pay over $50,000 in bills. One year later, on January 1, 2012, White became senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center as well. On June 20, 2012, her ex-husband, Randy White, resumed leadership of the Tampa location.

### Bankruptcy

By 2008, three years after purchasing the Lakeland property, Without Walls International put both locations up for sale due to financial difficulties. The Evangelical Christian Credit Union began foreclosure proceedings on both properties later that year. Selling two parcels of land to the city of Lakeland allowed for a settlement with the credit union in 2009, modifying the mortgage through 2013. In November 2011, while White was still senior pastor of the location, her ex-husband Randy White said that the Lakeland property was on the verge of being sold or going into foreclosure. By October 2012, the Tampa property was under foreclosure proceedings by the Evangelical Christian Credit Union after failure to pay loans. In a counterclaim filed at that time, Without Walls International claimed that White had stolen $600,000 in audio-visual equipment owned by the church to use at her new church in Apopka.
On March 4, 2014, when White was the senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka, Without Walls International Church filed for Chapter 11 federal bankruptcy protection. In response, the Evangelical Christian Credit Union, which said the church owed it $29 million, called the filing a "litigation tactic" to prevent the foreclosure of two church locations. In a television interview with Erin Burnett at CNN, White stated, "I've never filed bankruptcy. I had resigned Without Walls. I had absolutely no part."

### Paula White Ministries

White recorded the first broadcast of Paula White Today in December 2001. By 2006, her show appeared on nine television networks, including Trinity Broadcast Network, Daystar, and Black Entertainment Television.
Ebony magazine said of White, "You know you're on to something new and significant when the most popular woman preacher on the Black Entertainment Network is a white woman."
White considers T. D. Jakes her spiritual father. Jakes invited her to speak at his 2000 "Woman Thou Art Loosed" conference. White also participated in the Mega Fest, hosted by Jakes in Atlanta, in 2004, 2005 and 2008.
White has ministered to Michael Jackson, Gary Sheffield, and Darryl Strawberry. In 2003, after Strawberry completed a prison sentence for cocaine possession, White became his personal pastor. Charisse Strawberry, Darryl's wife at the time, worked as an assistant to White, accompanying her on speaking engagements. White is the "personal life coach" of Tyra Banks and appeared on her show, the Tyra Banks Show, in an episode on promiscuity on October 4, 2006.
On December 31, 2011, the New Destiny Christian Church board in Apopka, Florida, announced it had appointed White to succeed Zachery Tims as the new senior pastor. New Destiny Christian Center had been searching for a replacement since his death in August 2011. Tims' ex-wife Riva filed a lawsuit against the board of directors but quickly dropped it, citing a hold harmless clause in her 2009 marital settlement agreement.
Upon hearing of the controversy, White addressed the New Destiny Christian Center during a service she led: "I'm not asking you to like me. I'm not asking you to love me or respect me, because I'll do the work to earn that. I always ask people to give me one year of your life, and I promise you will be changed."
In 2012, after Tims died, White became senior pastor for New Destiny Christian Center (later renamed City of Destiny). Her community work was praised by Apopka Mayor Joe Kilsheimer.
On May 5, 2019, White announced that she was stepping down as senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center and that her son and his wife would become the new senior pastors. The church would also be renamed City of Destiny. White said she would help start 3,000 churches and a university.
In March 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, White said, "We are a hospital for those who are soul sick, those who are spiritually sick," and, citing Psalm 91, solicited donations of $91 or, "maybe $9 or whatever God tells you to do." White let donors know that the money would not go to victims of the disease. After widespread criticism of an Arizona event scheduled for April 9, 2020, for which she had promised "supernatural protection," White withdrew from the fundraiser.

### Donald Trump

White became a personal minister to Donald Trump after he watched her television show; he first contacted White by telephone in 2002. He brought her to Atlantic City on multiple occasions for private Bible studies, and has appeared on her television show. In June 2016, White was credited by James Dobson for having converted Trump to Christianity. White was part of Trump's Evangelical Advisory Board during his campaign for president, and she provided the invocation prayer during Trump's inauguration ceremony. White said in 2024 that she had owned a condo in Trump Tower in New York for 20 years.
From June 2016, White had served as one of Trump's spiritual advisors, and after his election had held various prayer circles with him in the White House, including in the Oval Office. One notable prayer moment was White initiating prayer with President Trump on February 27, 2020, at the African American History Month Reception in the Cabinet Room. White led black leaders to lay hands on President Trump, a moment that aided his appeal with the black community following their concerns with him before he was elected. In 2015, Black pastors called for then-presidential candidate Trump to apologize for unfair treatment of the African American community, and "also to Mexicans for his inflammatory rhetoric". White, with assistance from her ministry board advisor, Jack Graham, has had an ongoing spiritual collaboration with Trump.
White enthusiastically supported Trump's 2017 decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
In a July 2018 interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network, White criticized immigration advocates who cited the Gospel's account of Jesus migrating to Egypt, saying: "Yes, he did live in Egypt for three-and-a-half years. But it was not illegal. If he had broken the law, then he would have been sinful and he would not have been our Messiah." In response, William Barber II called White a "Christian nationalist" and said that "Jesus was a refugee & did break the law. He was crucified as a felon under Roman law."
White embraced Trump's immigration policy, including the detention of immigrant children, claiming conditions were not inhumane. Concerning the conditions of a particular facility, the Associated Press reported that "the facility was packed with hundreds of underfed, unwashed children-some of them sick with the flu, - forced to look after each other in the absence of the adults". But White claimed in 2019, that following visits to these facilities, detained youth received "three square meals a day". Additionally, White said that "the deplorable conditions reported by opportunistic journalists and immigration lawyers just are not there" because youth were "crowded" but in a facility that was "deep cleaned" daily and housed "smiling and laughing children" who played games.
In 2019, Trump appointed White to an advisory role at the White House's Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiative.
In 2020, White delivered the opening remarks for a National Day of Prayer ceremony.
White supported Trump in his 2020 reelection campaign, delivering a prayer at his June 2020 campaign launch event. White warned that "Christians that don't support President Trump will have to answer to God." On November 4, 2020, one day after the election, when election results showed Trump was losing to Joe Biden, White appeared in a prayer service, streamed via Facebook Live, in which she spoke in tongues and repeatedly called on "angelic reinforcement" from "angels" from Africa and South America to secure Trump's reelection, as well as "an abundance of rain". The clip went viral across the Internet, and White was ridiculed.
On January 6, 2021, at the pro-Trump rally that preceded the attack on the U.S. Capitol, White offered an opening prayer before Trump's speech.
On February 6, 2025, shortly after his re-inauguration for a second presidential term, Trump announced the creation of a White House Faith Office, with White as its leader. The appointment of Paula White to lead the White House Faith Office has drawn criticism from Christian leaders, including conservative evangelicals, for several reasons. Critics argue that White is not biblically qualified to be a pastor, with some pointing out that her role as a female pastor contradicts their interpretation of biblical teachings on church leadership. White's past, including multiple marriages and alleged scandals, has been cited as problematic for a religious leader in such a prominent position. There are accusations that White's teachings take advantage of vulnerable believers by promising material blessings in exchange for donations.

## Beliefs

White is a proponent of prosperity theology.
Her ministry began to take on more modern-day apostolic and prophetic aspects in the early 2010s, common in Independent Charismatic Christianity, as she took Independent Charismatic Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams as her spiritual father. White herself has been an "apostolic leader" since at least 2012.
White has been criticized for her religious beliefs by multiple theologians and conservative evangelists including John Mason, Scott Ross, Jon Root, calling her a "heretic" and "an abomination.". Additionally, she has been criticized for claiming to have a doctoral degree when she has no college or seminary degree. Christian rapper Shai Linne attacked her in a song called "Fal$e Teacher$". In response to her critics, White has said, "I have been called a heretic, an apostate, an adulterer, a charlatan, and an addict. It has been falsely reported that I once filed for bankruptcy and that I deny the Trinity! My life and my decisions have been nowhere near perfect, though nothing like what has been falsely conveyed in recent days."
In January 2020, White was criticized for a sermon in which she prayed for the miscarriage of "all Satanic pregnancies." White later wrote on Twitter that the comment had been a metaphor, and a reference to Ephesians 6. André Gagné, scholar of American evangelicalism and the New Apostolic Reformation, states White's "words were misinterpreted" given the context of her spiritual warfare prayer and the cryptic language used. Instead, he argues, the terminology refers to the destruction of evil schemes against Christians. Gagné has referred to White as "one of the most vocal advocates of spiritual warfare".
In December 2021, White participated in the "Prayer Rally for Peace on the Korean Peninsula," hosted by the Unification Church's Universal Peace Federation. During the event, she called Hak Ja Han Moon, the widow of Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, "a jewel from God" and lauded "Mother Moon for her great work as a spiritual leader who loves the Lord and seeks to carry out and to comfort the heart of God in all the areas of conflict in the world."

## Finance Committee investigation

Along with other televangelists, her ministry Without Walls International Church was the subject of an inconclusive 2007–2011 Senate Finance Committee investigation. The committee had investigated financial improprieties that could have affected the religious organization's tax-exempt status. According to the report, Without Walls church spent $900,000 in tax-exempt ministry funds to pay the mortgage on the couple's waterfront mansion, paid salaries to extended family members and also paid for their private jet. No additional action was taken on the issued report.

## Personal life
### Marriages and relationships

White has been married three times.
Her first marriage was as a teenager. White became pregnant the year after converting to Christianity. She and the father, local musician Dean Knight, married in 1985; they divorced in 1989.
White met associate pastor Randy White in 1987 while attending Damascus Church of God in Maryland, which was headed by his father. According to the book Holy Mavericks, meeting this third-generation preacher was a turning point in her life. The two divorced their spouses in 1989 and married each other a year later, White becoming stepmother to his children. Shortly thereafter, they moved to Tampa, Florida, and started Without Walls International Church. On August 23, 2007, Randy White announced that the couple were divorcing. According to The Christian Post, White says the divorce was amicable, and they remain friends.
In 2010, White was photographed leaving a motel in Rome holding hands with televangelist Benny Hinn. Hinn said, "A friendship did develop", though "the relationship is over". Both denied an affair.
At the close of 2014, musician Jonathan Cain of the rock band Journey finalized his divorce from his second wife and became engaged to White, whom he had seen during his marriage. On April 27, 2015, the couple married, White becoming stepmother to his children.

### Family

White has one child, a son named Bradley Knight, from her first marriage, whom she installed as her church senior leader in 2019.
She was stepmother to the three children of her second husband, Randy White, and is stepmother to the three children of her third husband, Jonathan Cain.