Evangelist, “prosperity” preacher and Trump spiritual adviser Paula White opened Trump’s re-election launch rally in Orlando on Tuesday night with a prayer that labeled Trump’s opponents “demonic” and urged God to defeat them and give Trump victory “in the name of Jesus.”
White set the tone for Trump’s address, in which he angrily declared that Democrats are “driven by hatred, prejudice and rage.” Trump said, “They want to destroy you, and they want to destroy our country as we know it.” That’s almost the exact phrasing used by Dallas pastor Robert Jeffress last Friday when he said that the left “hates the direction the president is taking this country” and warned that if the left gets control, “it’s going to be the end of America as we know it.”
In Orlando, White asked that God’s favor would cause Trump’s “power to be exalted.”
“Father, you have raised President Trump up for such a time as this,” she prayed, continuing:
Let every evil veil of deception of the enemy be removed from people’s eyes, in the name which is above every name, the name of Jesus Christ … So, right now, let every demonic network that has aligned itself against the purpose, against the calling of President Trump, let it be broken, let it be torn down in the name of Jesus … I declare that President Trump will overcome every strategy from hell and every strategy of the enemy, every strategy, and he will fulfill his calling and his destiny.
Destroy and divide their tongues, oh Lord … Give President Trump strength to bring forth his destiny … Let the secret council of wickedness be turned to foolishness, right now, in Jesus’ name.
And I declare that no weapon formed against him, his family, his calling, his purpose, this council, will be able to be formed.
Now I declare that you will surround him and protect him from all destruction. Let the angel of the Lord encamp around about him, around his family …
I deploy the hand of God to work for him in the name of Jesus. I secure his calling, I secure his purpose, I secure his family, and we secure victory in the name which is above every name, the name that has never failed, for this nation, and for my life, the name of Jesus Christ.
At the Washington Times, online opinion editor Cheryl Chumley approved of White’s invocation of Jesus to secure Trump’s victory. “And with that,” she wrote, “the spiritual battle lines have been drawn.”
White and many other Religious Right leaders frequently tell their followers that Trump was anointed by God and put in office by divine intervention, and that his opponents are part of Satan’s forces of darkness. That helps explain the strong support Trump maintains among white evangelicals, and as evidenced by White’s remarkable prayer, this drumbeat is only going to get stronger between now and the 2020 election.
On Wednesday morning, Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition announced that Trump would address the group’s annual gathering in D.C. next week.
