Paula White, President Donald Trump’s leading evangelical advisor, appeared to call out critics after a video of her election-focused prayer meeting went viral and was mercilessly mocked across the internet.
“You have my number. I’ve got over 6,000 people that got my phone number. You got my phone number, all right?” White said, as she paced back and forth on the stage of City of Destiny Church in Apopka, Florida.
“You know exactly—I’ll be bold enough to say it—how to call me. Don’t be a coward and put something out on the internet when you have my number. Call me. Call me. Because we’ll sit up here and I’ll have you come here and we’ll talk about it. We’ll sit here. Don’t have me call some things out. You call. OK,” White said.
The excerpted video clip of White’s remarks to critics made the rounds on the internet over the weekend, and attracted responses from various quarters.
“Ok @paulamichellewhite, here is the problem with this video: I have called you. And texted you. And emailed you but YOU have not wanted to have a conversation,” journalist Roland S. Martin wrote on Instagram, tagging White in his post.
Martin included a list of times he has purportedly reached out to White in an effort to hear her side of things, with the Pentecostal preacher reportedly failing to follow through on his invitations to speak.
In a November 6 video from his show, “Roland Martin Unfiltered,” Martin and his guests discussed a viral video of White at an election-focused prayer meeting that was widely shared and mocked online.
That prayer clip of White at the pulpit of her Florida church shows the prosperity preaching calling on angels from Africa and South America to somehow impact the presidential election in Trump’s favor. The shocking video, which includes White purportedly speaking in tongues (glossolalia), inspired various responses, including questions from other Christians about the spiritual legitimacy of her behavior.
It was unclear if White’s apparent call-out to critics after that prayer video went viral was directed at Martin, or others who questioned or lambasted her bizarre prayer.
Martin was not the only high-profile figure to respond to White’s challenge to “cowards” who put “something out on the internet.”
For example, Jamal H. Bryant, pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, accepted White’s public challenge to her critics and tagged her in his response on Instagram.
“Dear @paulamichellewhite I’m just seeing your video but regrettably I’m not one of those that has your number,” Bryant wrote. “I would relish the opportunity to have a discussion with you that would include but by no means limited 1) cultural appropriation 2) theology of angels 3) doctrine of tongues 4) theology of evangelicals 5) westernized Christianity…”
Bryant said he would welcome a “healthy conversation that would be helpful to the body and healing to the community,” with a trusted moderator, if White prefers.
“We shall overcome!” Bryant concluded his message.
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