Christian rap artist Shai Linne recently released a track called Fal$e Teacher$ and he lists Paula White as a false teacher. Have a listen:
Brad Knight, Paula White's son, responded with an open letter to Shai Linne, which you can read here. Shai Linne responded with his own open letter, which you can read here. Both letters were cordial and it was encouraging to see these two parties dialoging. I hope that Brad will continue the conversation.
The point of this post is not so much to defend Paula White (Being a charismatic, I have had some exposure to her but know little about her teachings), but to critique Shai Linne's arguments. I have posted some excerpts from Linne's letter and made comments below them:
Before I directly address the substance of your open letter, I first
want to commend you for a few things that encouraged me as I read it.
1. I was encouraged to read your confession of faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ. I loved hearing you affirm the blessed Trinity, the deity
of Christ, His atoning sacrifice and salvation by grace through faith in
Christ. I can’t even type that last sentence without it affecting me.
Beautiful truths, indeed! Those truths are the foundation of my hope and
joy. My soul leaps when I hear someone affirm these things as you did.
Amen and amen.
2. I was encouraged to read of your obvious love for your mother.
What son couldn’t relate to the passion behind what you wrote? If
someone said anything that I perceived as negative or untrue about my
mom, I would be the first to defend her. As a son who dearly loves his
own mom, I could identify with you. Thank you for setting a good example
for sons out there in stepping up to defend your mother.
3. I was encouraged to hear of your mother praying for your
salvation, as well as teaching you the faith. Again, I can relate. I
myself am the result of a praying mother. In fact, I once told my mom
that I would never become a Christian. Even as I entered adulthood while
continuing in rebellion against God, she never stopped praying for me. I
am eternally grateful to her for crying out to God on my behalf when I
was dead in my sins! So I was glad to hear you mention what you did
about your mother. It’s a good model for other mothers to emulate.
I commend Linne for starting out on a positive note and setting a nice tone for his letter.
With that said, Brad, I don’t think your letter actually addresses the real issue. My song was not about you, your financial status, the genuineness of your faith, your mother’s prayers for you or the good things that Paula White Ministries does. The song was about the false doctrine that Paula White and others have publicly taught for many years and continue to teach.
I think it's true that Brad gets off topic but at the same time, there wasn't much substance in Linne's lyrics to respond to, certainly nothing like the precise points he raises in his open letter.
Speaking of public teaching, you mentioned Matthew 18:15-17 to support the idea that I should have contacted you privately first. The irony, of course, is that you made this claim in a letter that is open for the public to read without contacting me privately first. Why did you choose to go about things in this way? Is it because I came out and said something about Paula White publicly and therefore you felt it deserved a public response? If that’s how you thought about it, you would be right. And that’s exactly why I addressed Paula White’s public teachings publicly. Here is a helpful article by noted New Testament scholar D.A. Carson on why Matthew 18 doesn’t apply in situations like this.
Linne makes a great point there and the article by D.A. Carson he points to is excellent.
Paula White did a series called 8 Promises of the Atonement, that at the time of my writing this, is currently featured on your ministry website. In it, she states that physical healing and financial abundance in this life are provided for in the atonement of Christ.
I would have liked to have seen Linne point out White's scriptural basis for that claim and then counter with his own scriptural argument but he gets side tracked by another issue:
She ends this section by boldly declaring around 29:40:
“You are not going to die of sickness. When you go, it’s going to be because of your appointed time of old age and full of life”
For Paula White to say this to a large crowd of people is both false and irresponsible. She has no idea how those people are going to die.
White was not prophesying, but making a declarative statement of faith. It is a different issue and Linne confuses the two.
The truth is that Christians do get sick. Many godly believers die at young ages from sickness and it is not due to their lack of faith or because they haven’t embraced what’s theirs through the atonement. It’s because God is sovereign.
As He says in Deut. 32:39, “‘See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god beside me; I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.”
Psalm 139:14 says “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be”.
God sovereignly determines when we live and when we die. And if He appoints or allows a sickness to take our lives, it is because His infinite wisdom determined that it be so.
Linne takes two verses that deal with particular points and uses them to make a universal point. In Deut. 32:39, God is not saying that He kills everyone. He is showing that He not only has the ability to kill but to give life as well. This ties into the
God of Chaos/God of Order issue that Old Testament writers were concerned with.
In Psalm 139:39, David is referring to himself and not to everyone in existence. I would have liked to have seen Linne use better verses to show that God is completely sovereign over everything.
Jesus commends the church in Smyrna when He says:
“‘I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich) and the slander of those who say that they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan” - Rev. 2:9
In His kindness and care, the risen Savior tells the church in Smyrna that He is aware of their poverty. What does He say after that? Does He tell them that they’re poor because they haven’t fully embraced the promise of His atonement? Does He say they’re poor because of a generational curse, as Paula White teaches at 13:20 in this video? No.
Jesus doesn't tell the church in Smyrna how to defend themselves against slander either, but does that mean that defending yourself against slander is wrong? No. Jesus talks about poverty because the false teachers at the time were saying that those who were poor would have a lesser standing in the Kingdom of God. For Jesus to talk about poverty in any other way within that context would be unusual.
Around 2:10 she says, “God is speaking to many”. She then tells them what God is supposedly saying, “Give a $126 dollar offering. For some it may be $1,260, for some it may be $12,600”.
Now if I’m sitting in that audience that day and Paula White says, “God is saying give $126 or $1,260 or $12,600”, what am I supposed to do? If God is saying it and I don’t do it, I’m being disobedient.
White doesn't say that God said for everyone to give those amounts. She said "many". Also, “God is speaking to many” may have meant she simply knew that God was saying it to many, as opposed to saying it to them for God. In that case, those who didn't hear God say it, wouldn't be required to give it.
As I’m sure you know, Brad, God takes speaking in His name very seriously. To say that God said something that He didn’t say is to lie on God. God takes this sin so seriously that in the Old Testament, the person found guilty of this was to be executed. Check out Deuteronomy 18:20:
“But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.’”
The verses following that one give the litmus test for how we can determine whether or not someone is speaking for God:
“And if you say in your heart, ‘How may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken?’—when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously.” (Deut. 18:21-22)
Now Linne expands the argument beyond White and encompasses charismatic Christianity on this point. I personally think that Deuteronomy 18:22 is the most difficult verse for charismatic Christians to have to deal will. I don't believe "
prophesying in part" is a valid excuse, but at the same time, think
Deuteronomy 18:22 is difficult to apply to the gift of prophecy.
