There are two moments from Mike Johnson’s early days as House speaker that almost perfectly encapsulate the broken way in which so many Republican evangelicals approach politics. The first one occurred just after the House elected Johnson. ABC’s Rachel Scott began questioning Johnson about her efforts to overturn the 2020 election. But before she could finish, Johnson’s Republican colleagues began criticizing her. Johnson just shook his head. “Next question,” he said, as if the question wasn’t worth asking. This is the kind of behavior that led Florida Republican Matt Gaetz to call the new president “MAGAMike Johnson.”
THE second moment ” appeared during his first lengthy interview as a speaker, when Johnson shared the basics of his political philosophy with Fox News’ Sean Hannity: “Someone asked me today in the media, they said: “It’s curious, people are curious. What does Mike Johnson think about every problem under the sun? I said, “Well, go get a Bible off your shelf and read it.” » This is my view of the world.
This quote is less enlightening than many people think. The Bible says a lot about a lot of things, but it is open to interpretation on many others and silent on many others. (It says nothing, for example, about the appropriate level of funding for the IRS, Johnson’s first substantial foray into politics as president.) I know Democrats who also root their political philosophy in the Bible. I am a Never Trump evangelical conservative, and I too look to Scripture to guide my mind and heart.
Johnson and I have such similar religious beliefs that we once worked together at the same Christian law firm. We’ve worked in different states and different practice groups (I focused on academic freedom), but we’ve both advocated for religious freedom, and we’d most likely both say pretty much the same things about, say, the inerrancy of the Scriptures. Yet we have taken very different political paths.
In general, belief in the Bible is not a reliable indicator of political philosophy. Consider the yawning racial divide among evangelicals: a Lifeway 2020 survey conducted just before the election, white evangelicals told pollsters they intended to vote for Donald Trump 73 percent to 18 percent, while black evangelicals said they would vote for President Biden in 69 percent to 19 percent. I’ve spoken to black evangelicals—many of whom are members of my church—who feel their views are often invisible in public debates about faith and politics.
It turns out that the Bible isn’t actually a clear guide to “everything under the sun.” You can read it cover to cover, believe every word you read and still not know the “Christian” policy on a vast majority of the controversial issues. Even when evangelical Christians largely agree on certain moral principles, such as the idea that marriage is a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman, there is widespread disagreement over to what extent civil law should reflect these evangelical moral beliefs.
Although the Bible is not a clear guide to American foreign policy, American economic policy, or American constitutional law, it is a much clearer guide to Christian virtue. Here, for example, is one of these virtues: honesty.
Which brings us back to Johnson’s refusal to answer a question about efforts to overturn the 2020 election. There’s a reason the effort is called big lie. It was one of the most dishonest and transparent political movements in American history. And Johnson was in the middle of it all. He helped mobilize Republican support for Texas’ utterly frivolous lawsuit seeking to overturn elections in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. According to a full Politico report on Johnson’s efforts to steal the election, he was an “omnipresent contact for Trump at key moments” in the plot.
He said there was “a lot of merit” to completely false claims that voting machines would be “rigged with this software by Dominion.” Like most House Republicans, he voted against certification of the election, even after a screaming mob stormed the Capitol on January 6. In the same interview in which Johnson called Dominion, he said the Georgia election was “set up for Team Biden to win” through “massive fraud, errors and irregularities.” .” By who? The Republican governor and the Republican secretary of state?
Johnson is a very nice person and, unlike Trump, he makes his points in a completely reasonable tone of voice. But pleasant lies are still lies. I know Johnson is an intelligent man and a good lawyer, so I was amazed to see him promoting the same theories as some of the greatest lawyers. corrupt And incompetent lawyers in American legal life. Former Representative Liz Cheney Johnson said “acted in a way he knew was wrong. »
Three days after the House elected Johnson as president, Mike Pence withdrew from the Republican presidential primary. The choice of the newest Republican vice president has become a secondary issue in the polls, and the reason is not difficult to discern. He’s just as forward-thinking as Johnson, he was just as loyal to Trump’s political agenda as Johnson, and yet – when push came to shove – he couldn’t participate in the big lie. He paid the immediate and permanent price for his honesty, with his approval among GOP voters. plunging after the attack on the Capitol.
This is precisely indicative of the political cruelty that has gripped evangelical Republicans. They are adamant about their political positions, even when the Bible is silent or vague. They are flexible in matters of morality, even when the Bible is clear. A Christian tells the truth, and it kills his career. Another Christian is helping lead one of the most dishonest and dangerous political and legal efforts in American history, and he’s receiving the speaker’s gavel.
Republican evangelicals are putting America under immense pressure. Christian Commitment to the Big Lie almost broke America. The Evangelicals loyalty to Trump – despite several other options – places, once again, one of the most malevolent figures in American politics within arm’s reach of the presidency. And now Republican evangelicals applaud like Johnson, another the man who was fully committed to overturning the election, became the second candidate for president.
This should not be the case. The Bible on Johnson’s bookshelf, the one that tells him what to think about “any problem under the sun,” may not tell us how to formulate immigration policy or how much money to send in Ukraine. But he condemns dishonesty, he condemns cruelty, and if there is one clear theme that resonates throughout its pages, it is this: “MAGAMike Johnson” and his legion of evangelical supporters should take to heart: the ends do not justify the means.
