Paula White, Donald Trump and Plantation Christianity

On November 18, 1978, more than 900 members of the Christian evangelical and Pentecostal cult, the Peoples Temple, died in a mass murder-suicide at the demand of their white false prophet and cult leader Jim Jones. The massacre occurred at the Jonestown settlement, named after Jones, in the South American nation of Guyana.

Jones founded the Peoples Temple in Indiana in the 1950s; relocated the congregation to California in the 1960s; and in the 1970s, in the aftermath of media condemnation as disparaging as a gas explosion, ordered about 1,000 of his followers to the Guyanese jungle, where he promised they would establish a commune of peace, quiet and perfumed harmony.

The mass murder-suicide took place after U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan flew to Jonestown to investigate claims of abuse and was himself shot to death, along with four members of his delegation, by Jonestown gunmen. That same day, Jones ordered his cultists to drink poison-laden punch, while armed guards stood by.

But just as astounding as the massacre itself, about 70 percent of Jones’s followers were black. Additionally, somewhere around 68 percent of those who died at Jonestown were black, and approximately 45 percent were black women.

One would think that, after such a catastrophe, black folk would hesitate to become the doormat for white Christian fundamentalists and evangelists. Most have. But a few still sleep like dogs, still bark like dogs, beneath the feet of white false prophets and underneath the couch of white Christian evangelical con artists.

The case of white televangelist Paula White provides a wonderful example of this shameful occurrence.

White is pastor of New Destiny Christian Center in Apopka, Florida. Some of the members of her church are white or Latino, but most are black. She is also a practicing follower and preacher of the prosperity gospel, which holds that God wants Christians to become wealthy and pocket as much cash as possible.

Under this theology, those who are poor are generally poor because they don’t help other Christians become rich through tithing, offerings, buying blessed chains and bottles of oil, and giving money to preachers, televangelists, deacons and church leaders to buy custom BMWs, million-dollar mansions, gold watches, expensive pottery, diamond rings and glistening white china.

Many white Christian evangelicals condemn White as a heretic and false prophetess and slam her as the cult leader of a cult church. She has been divorced two times and married three times, the latest marriage occurring in 2015 to Jonathan Cain, formerly of the gospel rock band Journey.

Cain has been divorced three times himself, with White becoming his fourth wife. We mention this twist in right-wing Christian morality, because though divorce and remarriage are denounced among most Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals as sinful, White and Cain love them anyway.

On November 6, 2007, United States senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa announced an investigation of White, along with other televangelists, by the United States Senate Committee on Finance for financial wrongdoing related to her church and other non-profit ministries and activities. Grassley later dropped the investigation against White, because most of the televangelists refused to provide financial records Grassley requested.

Just as disturbing is White’s stumping for the buffoon Republican Party presidential candidate Donald Trump. At a March 5 rally in Orlando, Florida, White claimed that Trump was a Christian, that God selected him to be president of the United States and that Evangelist Billy Graham, 97-year-old Billy Graham, had signed a Bible for Trump at Trump’s request and prophesied his election.

But many evangelicals don’t believe White. In fact, The Christian Post, a sinister right-wing evangelical publication, ran an editorial in February encouraging its readers “to back away from Donald Trump.” Why?

Because “Trump claims to be a Christian, yet says he has never asked for forgiveness. Trump is a misogynist and philanderer. He demeans women and minorities. His preferred forms of communication are insults, obscenities and untruths. While Christians have been guilty of all of these, we, unlike Trump, acknowledge our sins, ask for forgiveness and seek restitution with the aid of the Holy Spirit and our community of believers.”

Unfortunately, this advice may not apply to most of White’s black followers. We have not heard one word from a black member of White’s New Destiny Christian Center denounce her support for the racist and satanic Trump.

Could it be they are really White’s slaves? Could it be they are idol worshippers, with White as their white idol? Are they pigs and cows? Are they Jim Jones negroes?

Indeed, the relationship among Trump, White and White’s negroes seem to be a modern version of plantation Christianity. Otherwise, the graves of black slaves would not scream against it.

If Jones were to rise from the dead and inflict mass suicide twenty times, such negroes as White’s negroes would probably join Jones’s cult, probably kiss his ankles, probably put the cup of poisoned punch to their lips and certainly die as fools and sheep should.

Hence,  there is no expletive, no curse word, no damn or bastard harsh enough to condemn the bigamy that exists among White the heretic and cult leader, Trump the bigot and white supremacist, and the slaves and mice who are members of White’s church.

Their wicked and evil relationship is an infection, a disease, no clinic is morally or ethically equipped to treat.