1). “Mark Alford: Do US Republicans have a winning formula?”, Nov 17, 2023, Stephen Sackur interviews Mark Alford Missouri's 4th District member of the House of Representatives, HARDtalk from the BBC, duration of audio 22:59, at < https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/
2). “Mike Johnson: ‘Depraved’ America Deserves God’s Wrath. Citing the increase in queer youth, Johnson called American culture 'dark and depraved' on a call with a Christian nationalist pastor”, Nov 15, 2023, Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, at < https://www.rollingstone.com/
3). “SCOOP: Mike Johnson Urged a Religious Test for Politicians”, Oct 31, 2023, David Corn, A NEWSLETTER FROM DAVID CORN, Mother Jones, at < https://link.motherjones.com/
4). “Mike Johnson Conducted Seminars Promoting the US as a 'Christian Nation': The new House speaker called for 'biblically sanctioned government.' ”, Oct 28, 2023, David Corn, Mother Jones, at < https://www.motherjones.com/
5). “WPN Call 279 | Mike Johnson, Jody Hice - Congress Update: Concurrent Resolution and Motion to Vacate”, Jim Garlow (Christian Nationalist Preacher) hosts phone call with Mike Johnson, Well Versed, duration of video 1:16:40, at < https://wellversedworld.org/
~~ recommended by dmorista ~~
Introduction ny dmorista: In Item 1): The BBC radio show “Hard Talk” very recently interviewed Missouri Republican, the Christo-Fascist U.S. House Member Mark Alford. Alford is an acolyte of Mike Johnson, the Christo-Fascist Speaker of the House and closely hews to the far-right line espoused by Johnson. The map of Missouri District 4 is presented here below with the demographic makeup of the district and the results from the 2022 election when Mark Alford overwhelmingly election to the seat with 71.3% of the vote and the Libertarian siphoned off 2.4% so support for Alford's ideology and positions, among those who voted, was really 73.7%. This is not a margin that can be ovecome by the end of voter suppression. This is a hard-core right-wing congressional district. Alford is a proponent of all the crazy “Christian Nation” blather and such agenda items as Force-birth policies regardless of danger to the mother, rape, or incest, situations that he dismisses as extreme and very rare occurrence that are not worth discussing. He also dismissed the vote for abortion rights that took place in Ohio a few days ago. He is one of those who claims he has a “higher authority” from the vengeful and vicious God of the Bible.
Table 1). Election Results for Missouri House District 4 on November 8, 2022
Alford states clearly that he is a foot-soldier for the Chrsto-Fascist agenda of Mike Johnson and his ilk. So some items about Mike Johnson need to be discussed. In Item 2). “Mike Johnson: ‘Depraved’ America Deserves God’s Wrath ….” there is a discussion that centers on a phone call that Johnson made into a Christian Right radio / internet program hosted by Jim Garlow on Well Versed. This Rolling Stone article points out that Garlow is a major figure in:
“the 'New Apostolic Reformation', (NAR) a strain of Charismatic Christianity that holds that gifts of the spirit — including prophecy — are not biblical bygones, but alive in our time. …. NAR leaders embrace 'dominionism,' the concept that Christians are supposed to rise and rule over 'the nations,' in order to bring the globe into a biblical alignment, in preparation for the second coming of Jesus.
“To Garlow, this transformation is to be achieved through the 'Seven Mountains Mandate' — with Christians ascending to the tops of seven cultural mountains (also referred to as 'spheres of influence'): religion, family, education, media, entertainment, business, and government. 'We’re the ones called the disciple the nation,' Garlow has said, teaching on the concept, 'and we disciple the nations through those seven spheres of influence.' (Emphasis added) ….
“In 2018, Garlow departed his megachurch to focus on a new project, Well Versed, a group dedicated to ministering to members of Congress and the United Nations. The ministry carries an overtly Christian nationalist message, insisting that politics 'need to conform to God’s Word, since He is the one who established government and establishes nations.'
“Johnson and Garlow are fellow travelers in many key respects — including in that they’re both unabashed Trump boosters and election deniers. Johnson first won office in the 2016 election, the same year Trump took the presidency, and infamously helped propagate the Big Lie about the 2020 election from inside Capitol Hill. Garlow was part of a small circle of pastors around Trump during his administration, even laying hands on the president during Oval Office prayer. ….
“Johnson’s link to Garlow goes well beyond appearing on these prayer calls. In February, Johnson, Garlow, and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins — whom Johnson says 'is like my big brother' — organized a National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance at the National Museum of the Bible. The early-morning event was attended by leading Charismatic figures like the Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn and former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, as well as more than a dozen members of Congress — including then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise. (Emphasis added)
“Garlow insists that his biblical calling is way past partisanship. But he uses the Bible to blithely support stuff that Republicans want to do anyway. His website insists, for example, that fracking is holy because 'energy independence is a biblical issue' and 'we are to have dominion over the earth, to “subdue” it, and to “steward” it for the Creator.'
“In his conversations with Garlow, Johnson likewise expresses pride that the House GOP’s governing principles — e.g., limited government, 'peace through strength,' fiscal responsibility, and free markets — 'are the principles of our Creator.' ” (Emphasis added) ….
“Johnson insists that’s only because of the Godly founding of America. 'We are a nation subservient to Him,' he says, adding that 'collectively as a nation, we need to turn to Him. We need a revival.' ”
And this crazed Christo-fascist is now third in line to become President of the U.S. Should something happen to Biden and Harris this Nazi would be the President.
In Items 3). “SCOOP: Mike Johnson Urged a Religious Test for Politicians”, & 4). “Mike Johnson Conducted Seminars Promoting the US as a 'Christian Nation': ….”, David Corn discusses some material he dug up about Mike Johnson's many statements, in which he discussed his agenda for establishing a harsh Theocracy in the U.S.
Finally Item 5). “WPN Call 279 | Mike Johnson, Jody Hice - Congress Update: ….”, is a link to the actual phone call, in the youtube discussion between Johnson and Garlow. The Morning Joe Show on MSNBC show did us the favor of broadcasting some very revealing excerpts from the October 4th Well Versed show. The entire show is 1:16:40 long, I generally do not post any links to articles of videos that I have not personally reviewed in their entirety, but this disturbing material, that includes many Christo-fascist statements made by Mike Johnson, not too long before he became Speaker of the House, need to be brought to the attention of The Class Struggle readers and commenters. I will be listening to the entire show in the next couple of days myself, the link is provided for anybody browing this post so they can do the same.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Please click on the following link as I could not open it up on Blogger:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mike Johnson: 'Depraved' America Deserves God's Wrath
In an October prayer call hosted by a Christian-nationalist MAGA pastor, Rep. Mike Johnson was troubled that America’s wickedness was inviting God’s wrath.
Talking to pastor Jim Garlow on a broadcast of the World Prayer Network, Johnson spoke ominously of America facing a “civilizational moment.” He said, “The only question is: Is God going to allow our nation to enter a time of judgment for our collective sins? … Or is he going to give us one more chance to restore the foundations and return to Him?”
The segment was filmed Oct. 3, just weeks before Johnson’s unexpected rise to become speaker of the House. Garlow pressed the clean-cut Louisiana congressman to say “more about this ‘time of judgment’ for America.” Johnson replied: “The culture is so dark and depraved that it almost seems irredeemable.” He cited, as supposed evidence, the decline of national church attendance and the rise of LGBTQ youth — the fact, Johnson lamented, that “one-in-four high school students identifies as something other than straight.”
Discussing the risk of divine retribution, Johnson invoked Sodom, the Old Testament city destroyed by God for its wickedness with a rain of burning sulfur. Johnson is a polished orator, but in a closing prayer with Garlow he grew tearful. Johnson intoned, “We repent for our sins individually and collectively. And we ask that You not give us the judgment that we clearly deserve.”
Remarkably, this was not the first time Johnson brought up his fear of biblical retribution on a broadcast with Garlow. During a WPN appearance last December, Johnson likewise declared that he’d been “burdened” by the need for America to “recognize there’s so much to repent for.” The future speaker elaborated, “We’re violating His commands. We’re inventing new ways to do evil.” He added, “We have to ask ourselves: How long can His mercy and His grace be held back?”
The prayer calls underscore the new House speaker’s alarming alignment with Christian nationalism — the extremist movement that holds America is not a secular democracy but was founded as a Christian nation and should be governed to uphold a fundamentalist morality. They also provide fresh evidence of Johnson’s apocalyptic worldview, in which he sees America as existing in “disastrous, calamitous” times and “hanging by a thread.” It raises questions about whether the Republican, who’s now second in line for the presidency, is leveraging his power not just to avoid a government shutdown, but to appease an angry deity — and avoid a more permanent Heavenly Shutdown.
The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time
Pastor Jim Garlow is not a household name, but he’s a national figure. A Christian nationalist based out of the San Diego area, Garlow is viewed as an “apostle” within the New Apostolic Reformation, a strain of Charismatic Christianity that holds that gifts of the spirit — including prophecy — are not biblical bygones, but alive in our time. NAR differentiates itself from other strains of evangelical Christianity in its obsession with earthly power. NAR leaders embrace “dominionism,” the concept that Christians are supposed to rise and rule over “the nations,” in order to bring the globe into a biblical alignment, in preparation for the second coming of Jesus.
To Garlow, this transformation is to be achieved through the “Seven Mountains Mandate” — with Christians ascending to the tops of seven cultural mountains (also referred to as “spheres of influence”): religion, family, education, media, entertainment, business, and government. “We’re the ones called the disciple the nation,” Garlow has said, teaching on the concept, “and we disciple the nations through those seven spheres of influence.”
Johnson is a professed Baptist. But the 51-year-old has known Garlow for “two decades or more,” he revealed on a third WPN call from 2021. Johnson calls Garlow a “profound influence” on “my life and my walk with Christ.” Garlow, using similar language, calls Johnson “a special brother.” (Neither the speaker’s office nor Garlow have responded to questions from Rolling Stone.)
'Shut Up, Colonel Sanders': Republicans Can't Stop Attacking Each Other
In the prayer call videos, Johnson appears unfazed — in fact delighted — by the shofar-bleating theatrics featured on Garlow’s broadcast. NAR Christians not only fetishize the practices of the Old Testament, they believe in spiritual warfare — an ongoing battle between demons and angels that influences current events. Johnson speaks fluently in this faith language on the call. He salutes the “prayer warriors” in the audience, and calls for “supernatural intervention” from God, to “withhold the wrath of our enemies here on the Earth” and also to “restrain The Enemy, the one that prowls around like a roaring lion.” Johnson even offers a special shout-out for “all those who are leading out in the field, in their spheres of influence.”
Matthew Taylor is a religion scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, & Jewish Studies, as well as an NAR expert who first highlighted Johnson’s links to Garlow. Taylor describes Garlow as “one of the frontline people for the NAR.” But he confesses it is challenging to know what to make of Johnson’s invocation of the movement’s argot. “Is he speaking the local vernacular when he’s hanging out with Jim Garlow? Does he really believe in spiritual warfare? I don’t know. Jim Garlow really believes this stuff.”
Taylor leaves open the possibility that Johnson’s embrace of NAR rhetoric may be more like religious pandering. “He seems to be signaling that he sees himself in affiliation or an alliance with them,” Taylor says, emphasizing that such outreach has paid off in the embrace Johnson has received from NAR leaders since becoming Speaker. “They very much see Johnson as somebody who is with them and their agenda,” Taylor says.
Now in his mid-70s, Garlow describes himself as having received a “governmental annointing” when he was just a child, and has long preached politics from the pulpit. In 2008, he played a leading role in promoting the passage of Prop 8 — a California initiative, rooted in anti-gay bigotry that for a time outlawed same-sex marriages in the state. In 2010, he joined on as chairman of a Newt Gingrich project called Renewing American Leadership, dedicated to “preserving” America’s “Judeo-Christian heritage.” In 2018, Garlow departed his megachurch to focus on a new project, Well Versed, a group dedicated to ministering to members of Congress and the United Nations. The ministry carries an overtly Christian nationalist message, insisting that politics “need to conform to God’s Word, since He is the one who established government and establishes nations.”
Johnson and Garlow are fellow travelers in many key respects — including in that they’re both unabashed Trump boosters and election deniers. Johnson first won office in the 2016 election, the same year Trump took the presidency, and infamously helped propagate the Big Lie about the 2020 election from inside Capitol Hill. Garlow was part of a small circle of pastors around Trump during his administration, even laying hands on the president during Oval Office prayer. In November 2020, Garlow penned an op-ed for Charisma News endorsing Trump, writing, “God has put him in this position at this time. We need to keep him there.”
In the December aftermath of that election, Garlow was the lead author of an open letter to Trump declaring that “God’s ordained assignment remains unfinished,” because “God’s will is for you to serve for a second term.” The letter concluded with a prophetic call for vengeance: “Mr. President, the Lord is telling you to pursue the enemies of our Republic. Our enemies are God’s enemies. And with the power of God and the global praying church behind you, you shall recover all that the enemies have stolen.” (Separately, Garlow was dismissing the ideology of the incoming Biden-Harris ticket as “anti-Christ, anti-Biblical to its core.”)
During this post-election period, Garlow began a series of “Prayer Calls for Election Integrity” seeking divine intervention to keep Trump in power. These calls became a “hub of gathering, radicalisation, and planning,” recalls Taylor. The calls included borderline-seditious rhetoric in advance of the unrest at the Capitol, including a call by then-Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano for MAGA Republicans to “seize the power” on Jan 6.
Garlow’s calls never stopped when Biden took office. They morphed, instead, into a general-purpose Christian nationalist broadcast now labeled the World Prayer Network, centered on “the Transformation of Nations.” Despite regularly featuring GOP lawmakers, the online description of the broadcast insists it is not about Republicans vs. Democrats, insisting rather: “We ARE about God vs. Satan.” At the beginning of each call, Garlow says he’s seeking “biblical justice as opposed to social justice.”
Johnson’s link to Garlow goes well beyond appearing on these prayer calls. In February, Johnson, Garlow, and Family Research Council president Tony Perkins — whom Johnson says “is like my big brother” — organized a National Gathering for Prayer and Repentance at the National Museum of the Bible. The early-morning event was attended by leading Charismatic figures like the Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn and former presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, as well as more than a dozen members of Congress — including then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise.
The doleful day began with a bleat of a ram’s horn and introductory words from Garlow, who welcomed “Americans repenting for the sins of our nation.” Garlow then presented a stark warning, invoking two biblical kingdoms of Israel that he said squandered heavenly favor only to have God “take them out.” America, he suggested, was on that same path: “Present-day Americans do not consider the possibility that God could…” He stopped dramatically asking the assembly to “finish the sentence.”
Garlow insists that his biblical calling is way past partisanship. But he uses the Bible to blithely support stuff that Republicans want to do anyway. His website insists, for example, that fracking is holy because “energy independence is a biblical issue” and “we are to have dominion over the earth, to ‘subdue’ it, and to ‘steward’ it for the Creator.”
In his conversations with Garlow, Johnson likewise expresses pride that the House GOP’s governing principles — e.g., limited government, “peace through strength,” fiscal responsibility, and free markets — “are the principles of our Creator.” Johnson points to the supposed holiness of the Republican agenda to insist: “That’s why we can be so fervent about it.”
Yet even as he talks up divine support for the American GOP, Johnson makes clear he does not believe that many of his GOP colleagues are true Christians. On the December 2022 call, he relates to listeners how Garlow “asked me the other day, ‘How many do you think you would count as as truly committed Christ followers?’” Johnson reveals his count is less than a quarter of the GOP conference. “I think in the House, I could collect, maybe 45, close to 50 people who I believe [are true] Christ followers, and they live that every day,” Johnson says.
But Johnson is convinced that a small number can accomplish great and Godly things. He speaks at length about a devoted Christian “remnant” — or keepers of the true faith — who can help save America from retribution.
Aubrey O’Day on Sean Combs Rape Accusations: ‘Been Trynna Tell Y’all for Years’
Even here, Johnson is not brimming with confidence. He invokes Sodom, which Abraham tried to salvage by bargaining with God, noting that it would be worth sparing if 10 righteous men could be found there. (Ultimately God only found one righteous family, whom he let flee, before unleashing collective destruction.) “How large is the remnant that He needs?” Johnson asked. “Is it 10 righteous men in Sodom? Is there a remnant that that God would say, OK, I’ll redeem the land?”
Ultimately Johnson voices some optimism that the “remnant” will be big enough — expressing hope that, “He’ll guide us through,” because, “I don’t think God is done with America.” Johnson insists that’s only because of the Godly founding of America. “We are a nation subservient to Him,” he says, adding that “collectively as a nation, we need to turn to Him. We need a revival.”
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
SCOOP: Mike Johnson Urged a Religious Test for Politicians
By David Corn October 31, 2023
House Speaker Mike Johnson addressing a meeting of the Republican Jewish Coalition on October 28, 2023, in Las Vegas. David Becker/AP
The elevation of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) to House speaker was a shocker. Not since John McCain picked Sarah Palin to be his running mate has a heretofore little-known politician been lifted so quickly to a position of prominence and importance. Though Johnson now is second in the line of presidential succession, we’re still finding out basic and important facts about him and how he sees the world. This includes his alarming record as a hardcore conservative cultural warrior, motivated by a Christian fundamentalist belief, who has fiercely opposed gay rights (comparing homosexuality to pedophilia), called for a total nationwide ban on abortion, proposed the end of no-fault divorce, and urged a return to “18th century values.” One more significant thing I’ve discovered is that Johnson appears to believe in a religious litmus test for politicians.
This weekend I broke the news that Johnson and his wife, Kelly Johnson, a self-described Christian counselor, a few years ago created a seminar that promoted the premise that the United States has been a “Christian nation.” I found a video of one of these sessions they held in 2019 at the Baptist church they belong to in Bossier City, Louisiana. At that event, from the pulpit, Kelly declared that “biblical Christianity”—that is, a literal reading of the Bible as fundamentalists interpret it—is the only “valid worldview,” and nothing else makes sense. (This worldview includes creationism—believing that the Earth was created by God in six days 6,000 years ago—and the denial of evolution.) Mike Johnson called for “biblically sanctioned government.” In this venue and many others, including a podcast they have hosted together, the pair have contended that there is only one truth: “Jesus’ truth.”
The Johnsons are diehard fundamentalists who believe every religion other than their brand of Christianity is false and that whatever is written in the Bible should dictate all conduct, rules, policies, and laws. As I reported earlier, Mike Johnson in 2016 exclaimed, “We’re living in a completely amoral society.” The only way out, according to him and Kelly, is to abide by the Bible.
This is a lot to absorb. We’re often uncomfortable discussing a politician’s faith. But in this case, Johnson acknowledges that his fundamentalism determines his politics and policy positions. As he said during a Fox interview, “I am a Bible-believing Christian. Someone asked me today in the media, they said, 'It's curious, people are curious: What does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?' I said, 'Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That's my worldview.'"
After reporting the story on the seminars he and his wife conducted, I went back and watched the video again and found another important nugget that I’m sharing here for the first time. Toward the end of that three-hour-long presentation, Johnson instructed the assembled on how they ought to apply their religious beliefs to politics:
You better sit down any candidate who says they’re going to run for legislature and say, “I want to know what your worldview is. I want to know what, to know what you think about the Christian heritage of this country. I want to know what you think about God’s design for society. Have you even thought about that?” If they hadn’t thought about it, you need to move on and find somebody who has...We have too many people in government who don’t know any of this stuff. They haven’t even thought about it.
This remark came after Kelly and Mike had repeatedly asserted that the Christian fundamentalist worldview—based entirely on what appears in the Old and New Testaments—is the only legitimate worldview.
Johnson was telling the folks in the pews that the only political candidates deserving support are those who share this worldview and who embrace the notion that the United States has been a Christian nation. This smacks of Christian nationalism and appears to be a religious test for politics.
Johnson, of course, is free to follow his values, back politicians who are fundamentalist Christians, and press others to do the same, believing that only people who follow his take on Christianity are worthy of holding elected office. But doing so demonstrates a narrow and rigid view of life and suggests that he yearns for a theocracy—a government run only by Christian fundamentalists who base all their decisions on what they consider to be the “absolute truth” of the Bible.
A good example of how Johnson’s faith affects his approach to public policy occurred earlier in this seminar, when he discussed climate change. He asserted that the demand for action to address the climate crisis “defies the created order of how this is all supposed to work.” He explained that the Bible presents an order to life: There’s God, beneath God is “man,” and below that all the animals. Humans are to follow God’s command to “take dominion of the Earth. You subdue it...We’re supposed to eat those animals.”
Johnson noted that environmentalists ignore God’s word, and he compared them to the devil:
When you take God out of the equation, and you remove absolute truths...you got to make all this stuff up. So what they’ve done is, as the devil always does, they take the truth and they turn it upside down. So the radical environmentalists—they actually believe that the environment is God.
Johnson adheres to a harsh perspective. The only truth is what he preaches. The only true religion is what he practices. The only guide to the problems of modern society is the Bible. Environmentalists are akin to Satan.
Johnson does come across as a mild-mannered fellow. Indeed, during this seminar, he told his co-religionists that they need to promote their truth in a Christ-like fashion, with loving and kindness, and that they must avoid bitterness or anger. Do not be quarrelsome, he advised. Don’t try to silence or censor others. Let the critics and foes have their say, for, ultimately, nothing can defeat the one and only truth that Johnson and his comrades in Christ hold.
Johnson’s amenable persona is a cover for his extremism. He sees himself as part of a small band of righteous Christian soldiers combatting an “amoral” society. (His wife’s business was called Onward Christian Counseling Services. After he became speaker, she took down its website.) For Johnson, this is truly a war for the soul of the nation. With a Bible in his hand, he and a small slice of Americans are up against dark and Satanic forces. Still, Johnson is a happy warrior—albeit an intolerant one who believes that only he and his fellow faith-keepers possess the truth and deserve access to power. He cannot accept the religious and cultural diversity of this nation and the world. He is much better suited to be a preacher than a leader just two heartbeats away from the presidency.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Mike Johnson conducted seminars promoting the US as a “Christian nation”
"The government has replaced the Creator," Mike Johnson said in a 2019 seminar appearance. "Government is becoming God.” He is pictured here addressing the House chamber after winning the speakership this month.Tom Williams/Zuma
Rep. Mike Johnson, the newly elected Republican House speaker, used to conduct a seminar in churches premised on the idea that the United States is a “Christian nation.” This ministry, as he has referred to it, is yet more evidence that Johnson is committed to a hardcore Christian fundamentalism that shapes his views of politics and government.
The seminar, titled “Answers for Our Times: Government, Culture, and Christianity,” was organized by Onward Christian Education Services, Inc., a company owned by his wife, Kelly Johnson, a Christian counselor and anti-abortion activist who calls herself a “leader in the pro-family movement.” The website for her counseling service—which was taken down shortly after Johnson became speaker—described the seminar, which featured both her and Johnson, as exploring several questions, such as, “What is happening in America and how do we fix it?” The list includes this query: “Can our heritage as a Christian nation be preserved?” There were different versions of the seminar running from two-hour-long lectures to retreats lasting two days.
Mike and Kelly Johnson, each a fundamentalist Christian and culture war battler who advocates adhering to what they call a “biblical worldview,” launched this initiative in 2019. After one such presentation on February 24, 2019, at the First Baptist Church in Bossier City, Louisiana, where they are members—an event that also featured Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council—a local television news show reported that the seminar’s goal was to “keep God in Government.” Johnson posted the article on his congressional website.
According to a Louisiana Baptist newsletter, the Johnsons intended to first pitch their seminars to Baptist churches in the Pelican State before expanding to other states. The publication reported that the couple’s goal was “to equip churches to take a stand against the cultural attacks now being directed at people of faith, the traditional family and basic freedoms embedded in the U.S. Constitution.” It noted that Johnson said he was compelled to create this new ministry while serving in the US House because he was concerned “that too many believers today feel ill-informed to provide substantive answers to fake arguments.” It quoted Johnson: “Our nation is entering one of the most challenging seasons in its history and there is an urgent need for God’s people to be armed and ready with the Truth.” He was referring to what fundamentalists call “biblical truth.”
A promotion blurb for the seminar described it this way: “As polls show that Christianity is in rapid decline in America, and the culture is growing more secularized and more coarsened, many believers feel ill-informed and ill-prepared to do anything to reverse these trends. Scripture is clear that we have an obligation to provide substantive answers… But HOW?”
At a “Answers for Our Times” seminar held at the First Baptist Church of Haughton, Louisiana, in April 2019, Kelly Johnson proclaimed that “biblical Christianity” is the only “valid worldview.” Nothing else, she said, “makes sense.” She contended that guidance to the problems of today can be found in the “simple answers in the Bible.” Mike Johnson referred to the Bible as the “owner’s manual” for “how things are supposed to operate” and called for “biblically sanctioned government.” Johnson complained that there is now “total chaos on the street… God’s not at the top anymore.” He added, “The problem is most people” want “the government to take care of us now, we want the government to provide us everything… It will not work because it defies the created order of the Creator… The government has replaced the Creator. Government is becoming God.”
Mike Johnson ran through a quick version of US history, in which he insisted, “We began as a Christian nation.” He pointed out that Christopher Columbus said that he journeyed to the Americas “to bring the gospel to unknown coastlands and people.” Johnson added, “We would call him an evangelical today.” Fired up, he offered a litany of statements from the nation’s founders, government officials, and Supreme Court officials who cited God or religion as essential to the United States. “Is this a Christian nation?” he asked. “Yes, we live in a post-Christian culture. I think that’s beyond dispute. You can’t even argue with a straight face that this did not begin as a Christian nation.”
At this seminar, Mike Johnson groused that few of his colleagues in government abide by or even recognize God’s principles—that is, his view of God’s principles—and he expressed great cynicism about his fellow politicians:
A shocking number of elected officials in this country and state do not have a fully formed philosophy of government. They don’t know what their world view is. They’re just moving around waiting for whatever the loudest voice or the most powerful lobbyist tells them how to vote. God help us. That’s why we’re in the situation we’re in… They poll it. It’s not necessarily what his constituents want. I try to do every day what my constituents want. But sometimes what your constituents want does not line up with the principles God gave us for government. And you have to have conviction enough to stand [up] to your own people in a town hall and say, “I know you feel that way, but this is what you’re missing.” And I’m telling you, there’s a tiny percentage of elected officials who are willing to do that.
Mike Johnson sees himself as part of small band of righteous officials who take on the hard task of governing strictly according to the tenets of Christian fundamentalism. He and Kelly are true believers. He has long associated with Christian nationalism; crusaded against gay rights and same-sex marriage; decried no-fault divorce; and pushed for a total ban on abortion. Her Christian counseling practice has compared homosexuality to bestiality and incest. They share a dark view of the modern world. In a sermon he preached in 2016, Johnson declared, “We’re living in a completely amoral society.” And during a podcast last year with Jordan Peterson, the Canadian conservative provocateur, he said that “sinister” elites were responsible for orchestrating climate change as an issue to achieve global “control.”
In a time of political upheaval, cultural clashes, and war, it’s clear that Mike Johnson believes he has the solution. It’s not government of the people, but government shaped by his fundamentalist worldview. As his wife and partner-in-preaching says, nothing else makes sense. They possess the truth, and now, as he has become second in the line of presidential succession, he has the opportunity to meld power to this truth and serve the goal of making America a Christian nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment