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.