4/8/11
At the 2011 Pastors and Leadership Conference in Orlando last week, Pastor Paula White of Without Walls International Church finally spoke out on the scandals and investigations that have plagued her and her ex-husband Randy White over the past several years. As reported by The Christian Post, White spoke for two hours to thousands of listeners, saying she “came to put the devil on notice … I’m getting my dream back, I’m getting my prophesy back, I’m getting my vision back, I’m getting my anointing back, I’m getting my strength back.”
White’s troubles began with an IRS investigation of her ministry and personal finances in 2004 and continued with a church split, her son’s drug addiction, the loss of her stepdaughter to cancer, her divorce in 2007, accusations of an affair with televangelist Benny Hinn, and a federal investigation of her organization’s spending by Sen. Charles Grassley. White said the experiences left her health and her marriage reeling, victim to the “lies” that the media was printing about her and her ministry practices.
But White’s address encouraged all those suffering through trials to continue the fight to overcome. “I have a word to those who have all odds stacked against them,” she said. “You’re about to get your bounce back.” She also preached that “people of righteousness” must “stand up and say, ‘We’re not going to allow this.’ … We pay taxes. We work hard. We do it by the books. We have integrity. But you’re going to make a public misery and mess out of it like something’s wrong…” She commented bitterly that her ministry gave millions to local and international missions work in 2007, but the investigators wanted to fight with her over expenditures of $50,000 or less. White said the church should recognize “six ministries for fighting for the body of Christ for saying, ‘We are not going to let you dictate to us how we interpret Scripture.'”
The conference was hosted by Bishop T. D. Jakes and included speakers like John Hagee, Bill Hybels, I. V. Hilliard, Charles Blake, and Dave Ramsey.
