In the six weeks since it was created, President Donald Trump’s new White House Faith Office has convened meetings of televangelists, campaign donors and Christian counselors. Its guests have prayed over the president in the Oval Office. The office’s leaders are actively preparing to pursue cases of discrimination against Christians and “anti-Christian bias” in the federal government.
But some conservative Christians say the office’s leader, the pastor Paula White-Cain, is too unorthodox, and have criticized conservative pastors for even praying with her. The office is also worrying some in the policy world, who say this administration has fallen out of step with many religious charity groups.
“The most significant distinction here is that under both Republican and Democratic administrations, the Faith Office, what’s now being called the Faith Office, has thought well of religious charity in this country,” said Michael Wear, a writer and founder of a Christian public policy nonprofit who worked in the first President Barack Obama administration’s faith-based partnerships office.
“This might be the first administration that has set out to disparage faith-based charity in this country,” he continued.
Trump launched his Faith Office in February, putting White-Cain at the helm. The executive order creating the office was released simultaneously with another on “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias,” directing the Department of Justice to legally pursue cases of perceived discrimination against Christians. One of the stated goals of the Faith Office is to help implement that order and protect religious liberty, and White-Cain said she would work with Attorney General Pam Bondi to root out religious discrimination in the government.
Jennifer Korn, one of the Faith Office leaders, said in a statement to NOTUS that the office has been “engaging with faith leaders across the country through briefings, listening sessions, and working meetings to discuss the President’s policy goals, including religious freedom, protecting women and children, foster care, adoption, and education.”
“We listen to their ideas and concerns to improve policy and ensure people of faith have a voice in their government, just like every other American,” Korn continued.
The White House did not respond to a request for further comment on who has attended its events, or on criticism of the office.
Thus far, the office appears to have met mostly with Christian and Jewish leaders, according to social media posts by White-Cain and attendees.
The Faith Office hosted Ukrainian Greek Orthodox leaders in February to talk about the war there. It gathered some ministry leaders to meet with the families of Israeli hostages. It brought in Hispanic pastors and political organizers.
White-Cain, president of the National Faith Advisory Board and pastor of a church in Florida, has served as a spiritual advisor to Trump since 2002. White-Cain has been criticized both for her theology and for being a female pastor, which some Christian denominations oppose. Jon Root, a conservative influencer who says he supports the president, told NOTUS he has serious concerns about the office because White-Cain is in charge.
“Anybody that you know holds true to strong biblical conviction and discernment wouldn’t be involved with Paula White,” said Root. “She’s 100% a false teacher.”
Some conservative Christians have spoken out against White-Cain on social media.
“I may vote with a false teacher, but I will never, ever, under any circumstances, pray with one or participate in any spiritual endeavor of any kind with one,” Justin Peters, an evangelist and author, wrote on X alongside a photo of White-Cain and others praying over the president.
One of the guests at the Oval Office on March 19, William Wolfe, is a Baptist leader who served multiple roles in the first Trump administration. Wolfe told NOTUS that he’s seen the criticism of White-Cain, but said the office isn’t meant to be a house of worship. He said it was a “blessing to see” the White House taking a strong stance on faith outreach, and Christianity in particular, and that he’s grateful for its work.
“The White House Faith Office is not a church; it is a governmental office doing policy and political work,” Wolfe said in an email. “No one in that room had to compromise on any theological beliefs to be there, but rather, we were all there because, despite any theological differences, we understand the importance of working together on major issues like religious liberty, protecting the unborn in America, combating the radical LGBT agenda that is harming children, etc.”
Past administrations have similarly created offices focused on faith outreach, although with a slightly different bent.
The first version of a White House faith office was created in 2001 by President George W. Bush, who saw it as part of his goal of “compassionate conservatism” in policy. Stanley Carlson-Thies, director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance at the Center for Public Justice, was involved in the faith offices during both the Bush and Obama administrations.
He told NOTUS the goal of both was to provide a “level playing field” for faith-based and community organizations that sought federal grants to help them do their work, and to hear out the issues affecting religious groups.
Bush’s office held regional conferences helping faith-based and community organizations apply for grants on issues like substance abuse and at-risk youth. Various advisory councils set up during Obama’s administration brought together Muslim, Jewish, and Christian leaders along with nonprofit CEOs and some heads of community organizations to discuss interfaith collaboration, reduce poverty, and address family issues like teen pregnancy and fatherhood. Trump in his first term kept a faith adviser, but didn’t set up an office.
During President Joe Biden’s term, he set up an interagency council to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia, hosted webinars connecting faith leaders with suicide prevention resources, and mobilized church communities to respond to disasters, among other things.
Galen Carey, vice president of government relations for the National Association of Evangelicals, told NOTUS his organization has had a relationship with all the previous administrations’ faith offices. That usually involved participating in policy-focused roundtable discussions with other faith leaders and government officials.
Carey recalled the Obama administration’s advisory councils, which NAE attended, particularly on the subject of human trafficking.
“The council heard from government experts [on] what they were trying to do and what the situation was, but then also the government heard from the faith members about what we’re seeing, and what government initiatives or policies we thought could better address the situation,” Carey said. “In the best of worlds, it’s a back-and-forth that is mutually beneficial.”
Some of the people who have attended the Trump Faith Office’s events said they’ve been full of enthusiasm for the president’s agenda. Jackson Lahmeyer, an Oklahoma pastor who helped with faith outreach during Trump’s campaign, told NOTUS the Faith Office is focused on policy rather than politics. He also said one purpose of the office is defending religious liberty, closely tied to the executive order on anti-Christian bias.
“There’s been a clear trend of an anti-Christian bias within our federal government, from FBI and DOJ and especially the IRS,” Lahmeyer said. “And so the faith office will go to bat for Christians and helping to protect all peoples of faith, but Christians are targeted. The federal government’s not targeting Muslims or Jews or others. Christians are being targeted. That’s one of the aims.”
He was part of a gathering at the White House last week with some 80 pastors from around the country, along with other religious leaders.
“Everybody’s just excited,” Lahmeyer said of the meeting. “It’s kind of a surreal thing, right? That you have worship and prayer and pastors in the White House on a regular basis.”
Franklin Graham, founder and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, which provides both international and domestic humanitarian services, told NOTUS he felt Christians were not welcomed by Biden’s White House. Like Lahmeyer, Graham was present at Trump’s executive order signing ceremony that created the office.
“The Faith Office is a good thing,” said Graham. “It gives groups across the country, churches, denominations, a person in the White House that they can take their concerns to.”
Graham said he supports Trump’s actions, including freezing funds for foreign aid and refugee resettlement efforts in the U.S.
But those freezes have hit the faith-based charity world hard in the past six weeks. Many faith-based organizations that do international and domestic charity work are grappling with funding freezes and cuts to agencies. Although a judge ordered the money to be paid out, many groups are still not seeing the funds flow back. And some Christian groups that do refugee resettlement and other social services have been vilified on social media by some in Trumpworld.
“It feels like an attack on the faith-based nonprofit providers,” one senior leader at a network of Christian charities told NOTUS. “Our question is: Are we going to see more of this challenge to faith-based social ministry, health and human service organizations? We’re wondering where this goes, and that’s our concern.”
Carey of the National Association of Evangelicals said he and his organization would have liked to have more input on the foreign aid and refugee resettlement funding reviews. They’re hoping those programs get restarted soon. But the new Faith Office hasn’t reached out to Carey or his organization at all.
“We would have liked to have been able to talk, still would like to talk more about how things could be done,” Carey said. He said he met once with State Department officials regarding the foreign aid pause, but he still has “a lot of concerns” about how the pause is affecting humanitarian projects.
Wear, the former Obama faith office staffer, said he worries the office will be more political than policy-focused. He pointed to Trump’s signing ceremony for the office, where the president was surrounded by some of his longtime evangelical Christian supporters in the Roosevelt Room to pray.
“What we saw in the Roosevelt Room to celebrate these executive orders, who was being invited in to celebrate all of this, certainly doesn’t harm the idea that this is a political office, not one that’s seeking to release the armies of compassion,” Wear said. “I think this administration thinks compassion is a dirty word.”
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Helen Huiskes is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Em Luetkemeyer contributed reporting.