While the U.S House was ignoring the Israel-Ukraine aid package passed by the Senate and starting a two-week Presidents’ Day recess, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and his leadership team went to Miami for a retreat and, according to a Politico story based on multiple first-hand accounts, Johnson’s presentation there “took on a surprisingly religious tone.”
Quoting people who were in the room, Politico reports: “Rather than outlining a specific plan to hold and grow the majority, these people said, Johnson effectively delivered a sermon.”
Portraying Johnson as just a pious Christian causes the public to overlook the way he manipulates Christianity to exert power.
“I’m not at church,” one of the people in attendance told Politico. “The approach fell flat among some in the room.”
It wasn’t just a sermon, though; portraying Johnson as just a pious Christian causes the public to overlook the way he manipulates Christianity to exert power. Johnson has taught classes miseducating Americans about church-state separation and perpetuated the myth that the United States, which has no national religion by design, is a “Christian nation.”
Two people who were in the room told Politico that Johnson “attempted to rally the group by discussing moral decline in America — focusing on declining church membership and the nation’s shrinking religious identity.” According to them, Johnson “contended that when one doesn’t have God in their life, the government or ‘state’ will become their guide, referring back to Bible verses.”
I’m sure Johnson is concerned about church membership decline. Most Christians, myself included, are concerned. But the responsibility for evangelism lies with churches, not with the speaker of the House in particular or the government in general. If increasing the number of people going to church is his priority, then Johnson ought to be leading a church, not Congress.
He seems to think more government promotion of…
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