No Religious Test for Office
Let me be clear! I do not criticize the new House Speaker Mike Johnson because he is a Christian. I don’t care what he believes about gay rights. I don’t care what he believes about evolution. I don’t care that Speaker Johnson is a “born-again” Christian. And I don’t care what church he attends or that he prays and reads the Bible. Many politicians claim the same religious beliefs and practices. Speaker Pelosi claimed that she prayed for Trump all the time and most members of Congress on both sides, claim Christian affiliation.
I also don’t care that Andre Carson, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib are Muslims. I don’t care who they pray to or how many times a day. I don’t care what they believe about the prophet Muhammed. They are free to believe as they wish.
I also do not care that one member of Congress is “unaffiliated” with any religious tradition or religion and 20 members refuse to declare their religious position. There are 33 Jewish members of Congress, two Buddhists, and 2 Hindus. I am okay with all of that.
Let me be clear. The Constitution requires all federal and state legislators and officers to swear or affirm to support the federal Constitution and not their religious tradition. Article VI specifies that “no religious test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.” In the United States, a person’s religious belief or unbelief is neither a qualification nor a disqualification for holding office.
The Constitution is clear. And incidentally, it is one provision of the Constitution that the framers were basically unanimous about and there is no record of discord or even debate about its inclusion in the Constitution. It wasn’t a compromise…it was meant as an essential principle of the foundation of the government.
Rep. Johnson – The Christian Nationalist
So here is why I am worried and opposed to the selection of Rep. Mike Johnson to be the Speaker of the House, second in line to the Presidency. He has publicly declared that his political views are determined and governed by his religious ideology. He has declared that he believes that the US is a “Christian nation” and should be governed by Christian or “biblical” principles. He has also declared that he believes the separation of church and state is not meant to keep the Christian religion exclusively from influencing or holding power within the government.
Representative Mike Johnson is a classic, flaming Christian Nationalist who sees no light of day between his religious beliefs, which are only shared by a minority of Americans, and his public duty to govern. Johnson, a Shreveport, Louisiana, native, entered politics after spending more than two decades defending conservative Christian causes as a litigator at the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom, a vanguard of Christian Nationalism, and throughout his career, he has argued in courts and drafted legislation to outlaw same-sex marriage and restrict abortion. Johnson believes that even though his religious ideology isn’t the majority opinion of the nation he and his like-minded Christian Nationalists still have the right to impose their religious viewpoints on the nation because it will please God.
If you want a full conversation and deep dive into Johnson’s Christian Nationalist proclivities, I suggest you tap into Kristen Du Mez’s column from Oct. 27. You can find it at the Du Mez Connection. Du Mez, who herself is a Christian, is alarmed by the ideology that informs Johnson’s plan of governance. I won’t repeat all the details of her analysis, but I do encourage you to read her column. She is a trained historian and ties this back to decades of antecedents of Christian Nationalist ideology.
Rep. Johnson – The Christian Zionist
I want to focus on one belief that I think is very dangerous at this moment in time. That is, Speaker Johnson’s radical views about the place of Israel in Biblical prophecy and his desire to not only support Israel, which most legislators do but to even encourage a war in the Middle East as a portend to the return of Jesus Christ. Johnson believes, as do most Evangelical Christians, that Israel and the Jewish people are God’s chosen nation and will play a pivotal role in the “end-times” spoken about in the book of Revelations, the last book of the Bible.
Let me be clear. I don’t care what Johnson believes about the book of Revelation, the end-times, or the second coming of Jesus. I do care that he is now in a position to enact policy, based on his religious beliefs, which he has declared he intends to do, that will steer events toward what he perceives to be an “apocalyptic ending.”
Rep. Johnson traveled to Israel in February 2020 with an under-the-radar group called the 12Tribe Films Foundation. The organization’s CEO is a social media activist named Avi Abelow, who emigrated from New York more than 30 years ago at age 18 and lives in the West Bank settlement of Efrat. Johnson’s first stop on his Abelow-organized visit was to the Kohelet Policy Forum – the conservative think tank that has been an essential partner to the government’s efforts to weaken the judiciary. Most Israelis oppose this move. Johnson has strong ties to the most conservative-religiously motivated elements within Israel’s government.
The fourth-term congressman also visited the Temple Mount compound alongside Yehudah Glick, a former Likud lawmaker who has led the fight to permit Jewish prayer at the flash point Jerusalem holy site – in opposition to both official Israeli government policy as well as that of the international community, and the Biden administration and Jordan. Johnson later described his visit as “the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy,” while blaming the Temple Mount status quo on “the radical left” on college campuses and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel.
Again, let me be clear. I don’t care what Johnson believes about the Temple Mount and the so-called “biblical prophecy.” He is free to believe as he wishes. He is not, however, free to legislate based on that religious belief. But by the way, every single GOP candidate for President currently stands in the same lane as Johnson’s religious view of Israel. They must appeal to the Christian Nationalist wing of the Republican party.
There Is Nothing More Dangerous Than a Person Who Believes They Can Influence Prophecy
Johnson’s pro-Israel views are tied to a historic movement called “Christian Zionism.” This is the belief that Israel’s return to Palestine is a just cause based on the biblical covenant between God and Abraham. The most quoted Bible verse relating to this covenant is Genesis 12:3 when God tells Abraham: “I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you and in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed.” This belief is inherent in most evangelical theologies today, and part of the conservative Christian ideology. But it also ties to the belief that this event is a precursor to the return of Christ.
Christian Zionism holds that the return of Christ will be heralded by the “rapture” — in which true believers will be taken to meet Jesus in an otherworldly realm. However, for the majority, the rapture will be preceded by the return of Jews to the Holy Land, and the conversion of Jews to Christian belief.
After the rapture, there will be a period of seven years in which the world is plunged into turmoil, violence, and misery caused by natural disasters, war, and dictatorial regimes. Jesus will then return to earth with his true believers to reign for 1,000 years. During this period of Christ’s rule, Jerusalem will be recognized “as the capital of the entire world”.
Although these views have their origin in 19th-century dispensationalism, (not a topic for explanation here), they were made popular to today’s evangelicals starting with the release of Hal Lindsay’s book, The Late Great Planet Earth, in 1972 and furthered by the Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye several years later. This literature and film started a craze among evangelicals that informs their beliefs and views today on Middle East politics. They view every event and conflict through this Christian Zionist lens. To them, it is all leading to one climactic event…Armageddon. Johnson has been caught up in the biblical conspiracy theory.
I call this a conspiracy theory for good reason. People who believe in unverified and non-evidenced plots and stories are easy victims of conspiracies. It is no coincidence that evangelicals have fallen for just about every conspiracy that the far-right has laid before them such as the Q-conspiracy, pizzagate, election denying, and Christian Zionism. None of these ideas have evidence or support other than from perceived religious leaders who share one thing in common…a desire to gain power to impose their religious views on the whole population. It is also why Evangelicals are dubious of science and evidence as in their opposition to masking, vaccines, and evolution. They will take the word of an ancient book or a charismatic religious figure of today over scientific evidence and verified facts.
Let me be clear. I do not care if Johnson believes in conspiracies, biblical or otherwise. I do care that he is in a position to influence or enact policy and legislation that will further what he believes are Christian end-time, God-determined events. It is a classic case of a self-fulfilling prophecy if a true believer gets into a position of influence.
The Hypocrisy of Christian Nationalism/Zionism
The hypocritical part of this ideology is that it creates a false sentiment of support for the nation of Israel. Christian Zionists don’t support the state of Israel for humanitarian reasons or basic human decency. They support the state of Israel because it fits so neatly into their conspiracy theory that it will hasten the return of Jesus. They really don’t care what happens to Israel, but they will support it because it serves their ideology of conspiracy.
And perhaps more hypocritical, Christian Zionism makes evangelicals, and people like Johnson, deaf to the needs and humanity of Palestinians. The mass bombing of Gaza is of no concern to these conspiracy-driven evangelicals. “It is all part of God’s will” is their pat answer.
I have already written that we need to be able to do two things at once. We should have humanitarian concern for both the Jewish people and the innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle of hatred and turmoil. Hamas is a terror organization and should be brought to justice and account. But the Palestinian people are not Hamas, yet the blanket punishment that Israel is inflicting on innocent civilians is causing needless and inhumane suffering. It needs to be condemned.
Rep. Johnson is more dangerous than Jim Jordan or Matt Gaetz and even more dangerous than Donald Trump. His affable disposition, lack of criminal baggage, and clear and calm delineation of his political-religious views make him potentially much more capable of enacting policies that will drag the Middle East, and the United States with it, into a broader war which in his estimation will hasten the return of Christ. Johnson is a MAGA-Christian Nationalist in sheep’s clothing.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In