The Real Origins of the Religious Right.

Donald Trump’s spiritual adviser has suggested that people send her money in order to transform their lives, or face divine consequences.

Paula White, who heads up the president’s evangelical advisory committee, suggested making a donation to her ministries to honor the religious principle of “first fruit,” which she said is the idea that all firsts belong to God, including the first harvest and, apparently, the first month of your salary.

"Right now I want you to click on that button, and I want you to honor God with his first fruits offering,” she said in a video shared to her website, in which she encourages her followers to donate to her ministries to get blessings from God.

“If God doesn’t divinely step in and intervene, I don’t know what you’re going to face—he does,” she said.

Explaining the principle of the donations, the Pentecostal televangelist, who has recently spoken out in defense of Trump’s mental health following claims in a tell-all book that the president is unwell, suggested that people would reap rewards after donating to her.

“January is the beginning of a new year for us in the Western world. Let us give to God what belongs to him: the first hours of our day, the first month of the year, the first of our increase, the first in every area of our life. It’s devoted.... The principle of first fruits is that when you give God the first, he governs the rest and redeems in,” she said.

"When you honor this principle, it provides the foundation and structure for God’s blessings and promises in your life. It unlocks deep dimensions of spiritual truths that literally transform your life. When you apply this, everything comes in divine alignment for his plan and promises for you. When you don’t honor it, whether through ignorance or direct disobedience, there are consequences."

White was among a number of televangelists who were examined after Republican Senator Charles Grassley launched a 2007 investigation into the finances of ministries that solicit millions of dollars in donations. However, the report, published in 2011, did not draw any firm conclusions of wrongdoing.

In her newest video, the pastor encourages people to send her money, stating, “Each January, I put God first and honor him with the first of our substance by sowing a first fruits offering of one month's pay. That is a big sacrifice, but it is a seed for the harvest I am believing for in the coming year. And God always provides!”

Those who send White money, which she suggests belongs to God, will see positive consequences, she claims.

“When you sow a First Fruits Offering of $75 or more, I will rush to you the book, the devotional and also a Paula White 2018 wall calendar! Track throughout the entire year prioritizing God with me!” her website says.

Does anyone have an address where I can send my donation?

Trump claims to be a really big fan of church, but the facts say otherwise. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.

"President Donald Trump gave Bible literacy legislation a shout-out on Monday with a tweet praising states that are “starting to make a turn back” to an unspecified time when public schools apparently relished in Bible study.

As The Washington Post’s Mark Chancy noted, there was no such time in American history.

And as Trump’s former pastor noted, in any case, the president can’t exactly speak with much authority on the subject.

Pastor David Lewicki responded to Trump’s tweet on Tuesday morning, explaining how he served as a pastor at New York City’s Marble Collegiate Church for about five years in the mid-aughts.

Despite being on the member rolls, Trump never showed. Not to Bible study ― and not even to a service, according to Lewicki."

Published January 31, 2019
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYN-W2DD0r8[/youtube]

What other president has explicitly come out in favor of and taken a stand in support of pro-life/anti-abortion?

Don't you understand what a big deal that is for religious people who believe in stopping the practice of abortion?

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What other president has explicitly come out in favor of and taken a stand in support of pro-life/anti-abortion?

All the Republican presidents since R.vs W. have been pro-restrictive concerning reproductive freedom.

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Don't you understand what a big deal that is for religious people who believe in stopping the practice of abortion?

Not if they're not being coerced into having the procedure themselves.

Now people are realizing the "my body my choice" thing was not legit because the reality is that women are not choosing abortion in a vacuum. They are under economic and social pressures and so making abortion more restrictive legally helps protect them from those pressures.

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Now people are realizing the "my body my choice" thing was not legit because the reality is that women are not choosing abortion in a vacuum. They are under economic and social pressures and so making abortion more restrictive legally helps protect them from those pressures.

That's ridiculous. How does restricting people's freedom "protect" them from economic and social pressures? If anything, restriction increases the pressure.

Because sexual desire pressures people into sexual intercourse.

Legal restrictions help them resist.

If you are used to avoiding intercourse because you don't have the option of abortion, it is easier to resist than if you've grown accustomed to the idea that you can get an abortion as a last resort if other birth-control methods fail.

Religious people and others are against abortion, so we should be putting effort into eliminating the practice of abortion.

Respect and honor life in all forms.

Um, if they don't wish to conceive it's not all that difficult to obtain some form of contraception.

Your thinking is medieval — so people are supposed to control their desires for fear of a pregnancy that cannot be legally terminated? And what happens when someone does get impregnated and they lack the means to support a child or they clearly don't wish to have a child? The child becomes the embodification of punishment. How loving.

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Legal restrictions help them resist.

Legal restrictions can force mothers to give birth to unwanted, unhealthy, and unloved babies. Not fair to the mother and definitely a terrible fate for a child.

By definition abortion is not a method of contraception. Very few women are going to casually have unprotected sex because they know they can simply obtain an abortion.

And your restrictions fail to address pregnancies that go wrong where abortion can save the life of the mother or save her from having to carry a dead or deformed fetus to term.

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Religious people and others are against abortion, so we should be putting effort into eliminating the practice of abortion.

And other religious people support the practice as well as a majority of voters. As long as people who oppose the practice aren't compelled to undergo it themselves there's no good argument for eliminating a recognized medical procedure.

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Respect and honor life in all forms.

Then work to end war, poverty, and environmental degradation.

Paula White, a televangelist based in Florida and personal pastor to President Trump whom he has known since 2002, has joined the Trump administration in an official capacity, according to a White House official.

Ms. White will work in the Office of Public Liaison, the official said, which is the division of the White House overseeing outreach to groups and coalitions organizing key parts of the president’s base. Her role will be to advise the administration’s Faith and Opportunity Initiative, which Mr. Trump established last year by executive order and which aims to give religious groups more of a voice in government programs devoted to issues like defending religious liberty and fighting poverty.

As Mr. Trump campaigns for a second term, he cannot afford to lose support from the religious conservatives who voted for him in 2016 in significant numbers. Without their backing, his path to re-election would be significantly narrower.

He has taken repeated steps to ensure they turn out for him again — by issuing executive orders, making cabinet appointments and nominating federal judges that pass muster with the religious right. On a range of issues from abortion rights to tax exemptions for churches, Mr. Trump has tried to grant Christian conservatives their policy wish lists whenever legally and politically feasible.

But Ms. White cannot be easily categorized as either a political asset or a liability. She has a large following among Christians who believe in the “prosperity gospel,” which teaches that God blesses people he deems to be of strong faith with wealth, good health and other gifts.

But many other Christians consider these beliefs to be heresy. And Ms. White’s presence in the top tier of Mr. Trump’s coterie of informal religious advisers has long been a source of contention with many evangelical Christians.

Despite this controversy, Ms. White has remained in good standing with Mr. Trump, who invited her to deliver an invocation at his inauguration and has hosted her as a guest at the White House numerous times. In a recent interview with The New York Post to promote her new book, she said she sometimes visits the White House several times a week.

In the interview, she spoke admiringly of the president’s intellect. “He’s in total control,” she told The Post. “He’s not at all impulsive — he’s so far ahead of everyone, very much a strategic thinker.”