Paula White claims she helped Mandela abolish apartheid, but foundation has no record of work
Former President Donald Trump’s spiritual advisor, televangelist Paula White-Cain, recently claimed she helped Nelson Mandela abolish apartheid in South Africa. But his foundation says they have no record of her work with the iconic leader who died in December 2013.
White-Cain, who serves as senior pastor of the City of Destiny Church in Apopka, Florida, made the claim during a presentation at the Universal Peace Federation’s Peace Summit held on May 4. Her address begins at about the 20-minute mark of a more than 2-hour session featuring members of a group called the International Association of Parliamentarians for Peace.
The televangelist, who describes herself as coming from a wealthy and well-educated family whose fortunes were disrupted by tragedy and trauma, said she began doing work with Mandela — who served as president of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 — after she encountered faith in 1984 and began doing advocacy work helping homeless people.
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“That advocacy started, and I would go to South Africa soon after that and build the first AIDS home in Pretoria, South Africa, and begin to work with Nelson Mandela to abolish apartheid,” White-Cain said.
“Little did I know that God would take me [to] over 100 nations, multitudes all over the place to bring forth true transformation, ultimately bringing my path with mother Moon and being a part of this great organization.”
Mother Moon is Hak Ja Han Moon, who co-founded the controversial Unification Church with her late husband, Sun Myung Moon. The new age religious movement, which is not orthodox and is viewed by many as a cult, states that it's “dedicated to the goal of restoring the kingdom of Heaven on earth” and is now known as the Family Federation for World Peace and Universal Peace Federation.
When asked if she could provide further details about her advocacy work with Mandela to end apartheid in South Africa, White-Cain’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Christian Post.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa, which maintains an “archive of the life and time, works and writings of its founder, the late Mr. Nelson Mandela,” told CP they could not find any specific record of White-Cain’s work with Mandela.
“We have searched our holdings and do not find anything on Paula White,” Razia Saleh, head of archive and research, told CP in an email when asked about the claim.
According to the foundation, their physical collections “include the handwritten papers, official records and unique artifacts from the personal archive of Nelson Mandela in addition to records from the Office of Nelson Mandela after his retirement as president of South Africa in 1999, and the records of related significant organizations and individuals.”
In discussing her tragic beginnings at the peace summit, White-Cain highlighted how her father died by suicide when she was just 5 years old.
“From my very early beginnings, I didn't grow up in church and had no concept of faith. In fact, I had a pretty rough childhood. My father had committed suicide when I was 5 years old. I came from a very well-educated and wealthy family. But there was much tragedy and trauma,” she said.
“At 18 years old, I encountered faith for the first time and there was an advocate in Washington, D.C., by the name of Mitch Schneider. I was living in a trailer in Mount Airy, Maryland. And in America, they would have at the time called me trailer trash, but God is in the recycling business,” she explained. “He takes what other people call trash and turns it into treasure.”
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