Paula White Biography
Paula Michelle Furr White-Cain is an American televangelist, pastor, and proponent of prosperity theology. She is the first female clergy member to deliver the invocation. In addition to that, she was a senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center, in Apopka, Florida from 2014 until May 2019.
Paula White Age
White is 57 years old as of 2023. She was born (Paula Michelle Furr) on April 20, 1966, in Tupelo, Mississippi, United States. White celebrates her birthday on the 20th of April every year.
Paula White Height
White stands at an approximate height of 5 feet 6 inches.
Paula White Family
White was born and raised in Tupelo, Mississippi. She was brought up by her mother Myra Joanelle, and her father Donald Paul Furr III. Her parents owned a toy and craft store. When she was five years old, her parent’s marriage began to fail. Her mother left Tupelo and took her to Memphis; her separation from her husband and his subsequent suicide drove White, her brother, and her mother into poverty, where her mother became an alcoholic.
While her mother was working, White was looked after by caregivers. Between the ages of six and thirteen, she was sexually and physically abused by different people on different occasions. She has said that during that time, she suffered from bulimia. By the time White was nine years old, her mother remarried a two-star admiral in the United States Navy. Her family moved to the Washington, D.C. area when her stepfather was stationed at the National Naval Medical Center.
Paula White Husband
White has been married three times. Her first marriage was as a teenager. She married Dean Knight, a local musician in 1985 and they divorced in 1989. White became pregnant the year after converting to Christianity. In 1987, she met associate pastor Randy White while attending Damascus Church of God in Maryland, which was headed by his father. According to the book Holy Mavericks, meeting this third-generation preacher was a turning point in her life.
The two divorced their spouses in 1989 and married each other a year later, White becoming stepmother to his children. Shortly thereafter they moved to Tampa, Florida, and started Without Walls International Church. Randy White announced that the couple was divorcing on August 23, 2007. According to The Christian Post, White says the divorce was amicable, and they remain friends.
Musician Jonathan Cain of the rock band Journey was seeing White. In 2014, Cain finalized his divorce from his second wife and became engaged to White. The two tied the knot on April 27, 2015, with White becoming stepmother to Cain’s children.
White has one child, a son Bradley Knight from her first marriage, whom she installed as her church senior leader in 2019. She was stepmother to the three children of her second husband, Randy White, and is stepmother to the three children of her third husband, Jonathan Cain.
Benny Hinn and Paula White
White was photographed leaving a hotel in Rome holding hands with televangelist Benny Hinn in 2010. Both denied an affair. Hinn said “A friendship did develop” though “the relationship is over.”
Paula White Net Worth
White has an estimated net worth ranging between $1 Million – $5 Million which she has earned from her successful career as a televangelist, pastor, and proponent of prosperity theology.
Paula White Education
White attended Seneca Valley High School in Germantown, Maryland where after finishing her studies there, she graduated with a High School Diploma.
Paula White Career
White converted to Christianity at the Damascus Church of God in 1984 while living in Maryland. She later claimed to have received a vision from God shortly after her conversion. White became chair of the evangelical advisory board in Donald Trump’s administration and she delivered the invocation at his inauguration, on January 20, 2017. She is the first female clergy member to deliver the invocation. In November 2019, Trump appointed her special advisor to the Faith and Opportunity Initiative at the Office of Public Liaison.
From 2014 until May 2019, she was senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center, in Apopka, Florida, a non-denominational, multicultural megachurch. She was formerly the co-pastor of Without Walls International Church in Tampa, Florida, a church she co-founded with the pastor and then-husband Randy White in 1991.
Paula White Church (Without Walls International Church)
In 1991, the then-married Paula and Randy White founded The Tampa Christian Center in Tampa, Florida. Later it became Without Walls International Church. For the first two years, the church could not afford to pay the Whites a salary, it struggled financially. The couple lived on government assistance and the handouts of others as a result. The church changed locations three times from 1991 to 1998 until it secured the property at 2511 North Grady Avenue in Tampa. It also changed the name of the church to Without Walls International Church.
In 1999, the church held services in an outdoor tent and reported 5,000 attendees a week and 10,000 ministered to the outside of the church by 230 outreach ministries. It then purchased the property next door, at 3860 West Columbus Drive, to expand its Tampa campus. In 2002, it began to expand by purchasing the defunct Carpenter’s Home Church location in Lakeland, Florida. At the time, the church reported 14,000 members and 200 ministries including job training, evangelism among public housing projects, and a teen club.
In 2004, Without Walls International Church was the seventh-largest church in the United States where it reported a congregation of 20,000, the largest congregation in the area. White became the senior pastor of the church on July 12, 2009. She co-founded the church with her former husband, Randy White, who stated that he was stepping down as pastor for health reasons but would remain connected with the church in a different position. In addition to that, White became the senior pastor of the Without Walls Central Church in Lakeland, Florida on January 1, 2011, making her the pastor of both locations.
On January 1, 2012, she became the senior pastor of New Destiny Christian Center as well. Her ex-husband Randy White resumed leadership of the Tampa location on June 20, 2012, while the Lakeland location had been abandoned a year prior. White has not been listed as staff at Without Walls International Church since then.
Paula White Theology
She is a proponent of prosperity theology. Her ministry Without Walls International Church was the subject of an inconclusive 2007–2011 Senate Finance Committee investigation. She has been criticized for her religious beliefs by theologians and other conservative evangelists. White has also been criticized for claiming to have a doctoral degree when she has no college or seminary degree. Christian author Erick Erickson criticized her for agreeing with a man who said Jesus was not the only son of God.
White responded to some of the criticism saying “I have been called a heretic, an apostate, an adulterer, a charlatan, and an addict. It has been falsely reported that I once filed for bankruptcy and that I deny the Trinity! My life and my decisions have been nowhere near perfect, though nothing like what has been falsely conveyed recently. days.” She has denied all allegations and criticism of heresy. While discussing immigration in July 2018, White said that although Jesus migrated to live in Egypt, it was not illegal. If he had broken the law, then he would have been sinful and he would not have been our Messiah. In response, William Barber II called White a “Christian nationalist” and said that “Jesus was a refugee & did break the law. He was crucified as a felon under Roman law.”
Furthermore, she was criticized for a sermon in which she prayed for the miscarriage of “all Satanic pregnancies.” She also participated in the “Prayer Rally for Peace on the Korean Peninsula,” hosted by the Unification Church’s Universal Peace Federation.
During the event, she called Hak Ja Han Moon, the widow of Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, “a jewel from God” and lauded “Mother Moon for her great work as a spiritual leader who loves the Lord and seeks to carry out and to comfort the heart of God in all the areas of conflict in the world.” In addition to that, Christian rapper Shai Linne denounced White in a song called “Fal$e Teacher$”.
Paula White Ministries
White is the president of Paula White Ministries. It is located in Apopka, Florida. White is the Senior Pastor of the City of Destiny Church and hosts the Christian television program Paula Today. She reaches out through multiple charities and compassion ministries, fulfilling her mission and calls to win souls, heal hearts, and transform lives through her commitment to humanity.