Overview:
Christian nationalist and Speaker Mike Johnson recently gave a speech declaring himself the new Moses. American secularism has never been more vulnerable.
As reported previously at OnlySky, Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, is overtly and explicitly a Christian nationalist. With Johnson, there is no separation of church and state.
Previously in congressional politics, there has been at least the appearance of some distance between lawmakers and Christian nationalists who openly support them. The politicians have paid lip service to those who openly advocate for theocracy, but the distance between them has been enough to allow the lawmakers to go about their business in at least a somewhat democratic manner. But the situation in Congress presently is very different. Mike Johnson is not some distant theocratic thinker or religious figure shouting from the sidelines or bending the occasional lawmaker’s ear. He is the Speaker.
In 2016, he said, “You know, we don’t live in a democracy . . . It’s a constitutional republic. And the founders set that up because they followed the biblical admonition on what a civil society is supposed to look like.” And very worrying to those of us who find the separation of church and state crucial to the political operation of the United States, he added: “Over the last 60 or 70 years our generation has been convinced that there is a separation of church and state . . . most people think that is part of the Constitution, but it’s not.”
Mike Johnson is a deeply undemocratic politician who has found himself in one of the most important democratic positions in US government. Indeed, he is second in line to the presidency. This should be a huge worry for anyone interested in secularism and democracy.
SEE: ‘We’re a republic, not a democracy’: The origin of a weird talking point
As Time has reported of Johnson’s Christian nationalism:
It is critical to recognize the influence of Christian nationalism on Mike Johnson’s vision for the US. “Christian nationalism” isn’t a political slur. It’s a term that accurately describes an ideology that is antithetical to a stable, multiracial, and liberal democracy—an ideology clearly guiding the now-ranking Republican in the US House of Representatives.
“The Christian Nationalism of Speaker Mike Johnson,“Time
At a Christian nationalist gala for the National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) in December, Mike Johnson took things quite a theological step further in comparing himself to Moses. He discussed how he came to be speaker after the fracas involving Kevin McCarthy. Here is what he said:
The Lord told me very clearly to prepare and be ready. Be ready for what? Okay, I don’t know. We are coming to a Red Sea moment. What does that mean, Lord? And then when the Speaker’s race happened and Kevin McCarthy (who is a dear friend of mine) was deposed— vacated from the chair— oh, wow, this is what the Lord may have been preparing us for. And so I started pray more about that and then Lord began to wake me up through this three-week process that we’re in, in the middle of the night to speak to me, and to write things down, plans and ideas and procedures about how we can pull conference together. Now at the time I assumed that the Lord was going to choose a new Moses and, oh, thank you, you’re going to allow me to be Aaron to Moses.
So I worked to get Steve Scalise elected Speaker: that didn’t happen. And then Jim Jordan who is like another big brother of mine no that didn’t happen. And then Tom Emmer… And, ultimately, 13 people ran to the post. The Lord kept telling me to wait, wait, wait. So I waited and at the end when it came to the end, the Lord said ‘Now, step forward.’ Me? I’m supposed to be Aaron. No, the Lord said ‘Step forward.’
Johnson added that his “core conviction” was that “God wants us to seek Him for the path through the roiling sea” because America is “engaged in a battle between worldviews” and “a great struggle for the future of the Republic.”
Of course, for someone who advocates for a dominionist theocracy, republics play little part.
These aren’t just warning shots across the bow of the good ship Democracy, they are chain shots ripping through the sails and rigging, rendering the ship unable to maintain its course to a better future.
At the NACL’s event, Johnson was awarded the “American Patriot Award for Christian Honor and Courage.” The NACL’s leader, former Arkansas state Rep. Jason Rappert, stated that this was given as a result of Johnson’s “statesmanship, bold Christian leadership, and faithful service to our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I’m not sure you could find a clearer admission that American secularism is under threat.