Two days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, a little-known congressman named Mike Johnson took the stage at the Christian Center Shreveport to celebrate.
“This is a day we have been waiting for for half a century,” he told the bustling congregation, adding that there was no place he would rather be than with them.
He beamed as he read excerpts from Louisiana’s new law punishing abortion providers with a minimum of a year in prison and a fine of at least $10,000. “They deserve it, brother,” he said, laughing. He ended with a prayer quoting scripture and Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Johnson’s sudden ascension last month to speaker of the House, second only to the presidency, was a surprising turning point in a career built quietly in courtrooms, as a lawyer representing socially responsible causes. conservatives, and through the Louisiana Statehouse and the House of Representatives. , to which he was elected in 2017.
Mr. Johnson’s path also ran through conservative evangelical churches and institutions where faith is almost inextricably mixed with republican politics. It is a world that sees him not as a casual visitor or a friendly supporter, but firmly as one of its own.
Shreveport church pastor Tim Carscadden greeted him on stage with a joke: “We don’t let them go to church here unless they vote for you.” »
Today, as Mr. Johnson becomes arguably the most powerful elected Republican politician in America, many around the world are celebrating the unexpected triumph of a leader with impeccable conservative evangelical bona fides.
“For Southern Baptists, it’s like winning the lottery,” said Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Mr. Johnson and his family have deep ties to the Southern Baptist Convention, which is the nation’s largest Protestant denomination and often serves as a barometer of American evangelicalism. He has attended Baptist churches for years, served in a national leadership role for the denomination, and his brother-in-law pastors a large congregation in Shreveport.
The previous speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is also a Southern Baptist, but the denomination is less culturally dominant in his home state of California. Some Southern Baptists said they did not even know that Mr. McCarthy was also Baptist, and that those who knew considered him less closely integrated into the denomination.
Mr. Mohler is among several Southern Baptists who have emphasized in interviews how familiar — even ordinary — Mr. Johnson seemed to them, even as they recognized the extraordinary occasion of his election. Noting Mr. Johnson’s associations over the years with institutions like Focus on the Family, which opposes abortion and same-sex marriage, Mr. Mohler said he would describe Mr. Johnson as he would describe himself -even: “a conservative evangelical Southern Baptist deeply involved in these issues.” for decades,” and one that is “absolutely representative” of conservative evangelicalism.
Indeed, Mr. Johnson’s pedigree reads like an investigation into conservative American evangelical institutions. He has close ties to the socially conservative lobby group Family Research Council. As a former attorney for the conservative legal group now known as Alliance Defending Freedom, he worked with clients including Exodus Internationala now-defunct organization promoting the discredited practice of conversion therapy, aimed at changing a person’s sexual orientation.
The Southern Baptist Convention is theologically and politically conservative, and it has suffered similar upheavals to its values and identity since the election of Donald Trump, as has the Republican Party in recent years. Last summer, delegates to the group’s annual meeting voted to expel two churches with female pastors and to modify its constitution to expand restrictions on women in church leadership.
Mr. Johnson served as a trustee of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, his denomination’s public policy arm, between 2004 and 2012 under the leadership of Richard Land, a patriarch of the religious right known for his opposition to marriage homosexuality and abortion, among other issues.
Mr. Johnson’s family belonged for many years to First Bossier, a Baptist church near Shreveport. Its pastor, Brad Jurkovich, is the spokesperson for the Conservative Baptist Network, an organization founded in 2020 on the premise that the denomination is drifting leftward. Mr. Johnson’s specific views on the denomination’s trajectory are unclear, although he has publicly supported ultraconservative events and leaders.
A representative for Mr. Johnson did not respond to an interview request.
Mr. Johnson invited Mr. Jurkovich to open the House of Representatives in prayer in 2018. He also recorded a video greeting for attendees of the Conservative Baptist Network’s “Pastor, Prophet, Patriot” event in Georgia a week before the 2020 elections.
To some observers, both Mr. Johnson’s resume, common as it is, and his rhetoric, however mildly pronounced, represent the alarming rise of a new Christian right that merges traditional social conservatism and authoritarian instincts. Mr Johnson said popular self-styled historian David Barton, who questioned the constitutionality of the separation of church and state, had a “profound influence” on him.
Mr Johnson played a central role in attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
“He was uncomfortable with the violence of January 6, but the goals are aligned,” said Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. Mr. Whitehead, who wrote about the rise of Christian nationalismcalls Mr. Johnson a “near perfect example” of the phenomenon.
Mr. Johnson and his wife Kelly often share a platform in professional settings, a practice more common in Christian ministry than in national politics. They record a podcast about politics and culture, “Truth Be Told.” They also held seminars together in churches, addressing questions such as: “Can our heritage as a Christian nation be preserved?” ” according to a cached version of its website, which has since been deleted.
The couple and their four children are now members of Cypress Baptist Church, a large church in Benton, La., where Ms. Johnson sees clients in her Christian counseling business.
John Fream, the pastor of Cypress Baptist, said he first became acquainted with Mr. Johnson when he invited the congressman to speak at his church during a Sunday service celebrating the July 4 and honoring the congregation’s military and veterans.
“You talk about a patriot, I don’t know if there’s a more patriotic man than Mike Johnson,” Mr Fream said.
Like many of Mr. Johnson’s supporters in Southern Baptist communities, Mr. Fream said he hoped the new president’s even-keeled temperament would bring change to a political scene full of open hostilities and incivility. “He can agree to disagree and leave the room and still be cordial,” he said.
Andrew Walker, a professor of Christian ethics at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said Mr. Johnson “seems to be a very strong spokesperson for what Christians would like to see presented in the public square.”
Mr. Johnson’s attitude, which many Southern Baptists have described as positive, is a departure from Mr. Trump’s brash and aggressive style. But Mr. Johnson also accompanied the party’s shift toward Trumpism, which saw many conservative evangelicals embrace their candidate’s denial of office and tolerate his crude rhetoric and actions toward women.
For Mr. Walker, Mr. Johnson’s election to the presidency indicates that even in an increasingly secular country, people who share his views and speak his language have a place at the highest echelons of power.
“He represents an important group whose views are largely those of the mainstream,” Mr. Walker said. “No matter what secular America means, we’re not going anywhere. »
