Speaker Mike Johnson says the Bible is his worldview. Here’s what that would really look like.

Donald J. Trump was elected to the highest office in the land in 2016 having no consistent political philosophical foundation – other than his narcissistic impulses for attaining ultimate autocratic power and extending his financial fortunes through kleptocratic means in promoting his brand. On the other hand, the newly elected Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, the third highest ranking government official, has long based his philosophical viewpoint, including his political stance, on his deeply-held conservative evangelical Christian faith.

The four-term Louisiana Republican and constitutional lawyer told a Baptist newspaper when he was running for his Congressional seat in 2016, “I’m a committed Christian and my faith informs everything I do.”

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That same year, in an interview on a Christian TV show, The Disciple’s Voice of Hope with Alex Ray, Johnson argued that “we don’t live in a democracy” because America is a constitutional republic. “And the founders set that up,” he continued, “because they followed the biblical admonition on what a civil society is supposed to look like.”

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After being elected House Speaker, Johnson spoke prominently of his religion in his acceptance speech. He claimed that God helped raise him to this high position.

“I believe that Scripture, the Bible is very clear,” he pronounced, “that God is the one who raises up those with authority. He raised up each of you. All of us. And I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific time.”

Johnson revealed that he does not believe in the separation of religion and government (“church and state”) as written in the First Amendment’s establishment clause: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

In his podcast, “Truth Be Told,” which he recorded with his wife Kelly Johnson in September 2022, he referred to the “so-called separation of church and state” and said “the founders wanted to protect the church from an encroaching state, not the other way around.” In other words, the government must stay out of the affairs of religion, but religion can and should interject itself into the politics of government.

Johnson follows the “teachings” of Christian evangelist activist David Barton of Texas, who has been arguing for the past four decades that the so-called “separation” clause in the First Amendment is a myth and that the founders wanted this country to be run as a Christian nation, a Christian Theocracy. Though discredited by most constitutional historians and scholars, Barton’s historical revisionism has been influential in the views of many far-right Christian nationalists, including Mike Johnson.

Speaking recently at an event hosted by Barton’s nonprofit, WallBuilders, Johnson praised Barton and his “profound influence on me, and my work, and my life and everything I do.” Prior to his election for public office, Johnson worked for the Alliance Defending Freedom — an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group that has acted to implant more Christianity into public schools and government, one of Barton’s movement’s primary goals.  

Johnson stated that he and his wife Kelly are in a “covenant marriage,” which is a more legally binding marriage that makes it harder to divorce.

Johnson’s statements and voting record show that he opposes abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and commonsense firearms reform.

When recently questioned on Fox News by host Sean Hannity, Johnson, a Trump supporter and 2020 election denier, responded, “Someone asked me today in the media, ‘People are curious, what does Mike Johnson think about any issue under the sun?’ I said, ‘Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview.”

What strict adherence to scripture really means

When Mike Johnson claims that his worldview “about any issue under the sun” is based on the Bible, just which Bible does he mean? There is more than one, after all: the Jewish Bible or Old Testament and the Christian Bible or New Testament.

If he adheres to the Jewish Bible, does this mean that he follows all 613 Torah commandments and that he keeps kosher (Kashrut) by not eating shellfish, not mixing meat with dairy like in a cheeseburger, only eating mammals with cloven hooves that chew their cud, and not eating animals like camels, rock badgers, hares, and pigs, as expressed in Lev. 11:3; Deut. 14:6?

And what about in Exodus 21:15, 17, On Children:

·       And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death.

·       And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death.

Since all of Mike and Kelly Johnson’s four birth children and their one adopted son are still living, this would assume that none has ever “smiteth” or “curseth” their father or mother.

Christian Testaments, 1 Samuel 15:3, On Children:

·       Now go and smite Am’alek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

But, whether or not the Johnsons follow the Jewish Bible, it is definitely clear that they do obey the Christian one. So, we must wonder, just how many slaves do they keep and own?

Christian Testaments: On Slavery

Ephesians 6:5-6

·       Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

Colossians 3:22

·       Slaves, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ.

1 Timothy 6:1-2

·       Let all who are under the yoke of slavery regard their masters as worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be blasphemed. Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful to them on the ground that they are members of the church; rather they must serve them all the more, since those who benefit by their service are believers and beloved.

Titus 2:9-10

·       Tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect; they are not to talk back, not to pilfer, but to show complete and perfect fidelity, so that in everything they may be an ornament to the doctrine of God our Savior.

Luke 12:47

·       That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows.

1 Peter 2:18-29

·       Slaves, accept the authority of your masters with all deference, not only those who are kind and gentle but also those who are harsh. For it is a credit to you, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly. If you endure when you are beaten for doing wrong, what credit is that? But if you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.

Christian Testaments: On The Jewish People

The Johnsons must also despise Jewish people if he believes what the Christian Testaments say:

Thessalonians 2:15-16

·       [T]he Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out, the Jews who are heedless of God’s will and enemies of their fellow man… All this time they have been making up the full measure of their guilt, and now retribution has overtaken the good of all.

Matthew 27:24-25

·       Pilate could see that nothing was being gained, and a riot was starting [among the Jews]; so he took water and washed his hands in full view of the people saying, “My hands are clean of this man’s blood; see to that yourselves,” and with one voice the people cried, “His blood be on us, and on our children.”

John 8:44

·       And Jesus said: “If God were your father, you would love me… [but] your father is the devil and you choose to carry out your father’s desires”

Revelation 2:9

·       The Jews…are Satan’s synagogue.

Revelation 3:9

·       I will make those of Satan’s synagogue, who claim to be Jews but are lying frauds, come and fall down at your feet.

Galatians 5:1-6

·       Christ set us free, to be free men. Stand firm, then, and refuse to be tied to the yoke of slavery again. Mark my words: I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will do you no good at all.

Titus 1:14-16

·       And Paul said, “Do not give heed to Jewish fables and commandments of merely human origin that turn men from the truth;…nothing is pure to the tainted minds of disbelievers…. They [the Jews] profess to acknowledge God, but deny him by their actions. Their detestable obstinacy disqualifies them for any good work.”

Christian Testaments: On Women

1 Timothy 2:9

·       I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes.

1 Timothy 2:11-12

·       Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.

1 Corinthians 11:3

·       But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.

1 Corinthians 11:5

·       And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head – it is just as though her head were shaved.

1 Corinthians 14:33-35, 37

·       As in all the churches of the saints, the women should keep silence in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as even the law says. If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. . . what I am writing to you is a command of the Lord.

Ephesians 5:22

·       Wives, be submissive to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior.

Colossians 3:18

·       Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord.

Christian Testaments: On Divorce

Matthew 19:3–8; cf. Mark 10:2–9; Luke 16:18

·       The Pharisees questioned Jesus when he taught on the permanence of marriage:

·       Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” He answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.” They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?” He said to them, “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.”

Mark 10:11–12

·       “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery

1 Corinthians 7:10–11

·       Paul’s teaching agrees with this: “To the married I give charge, not I but the Lord, that the wife should not separate from her husband (but if she does, let her remain single or else be reconciled to her husband) — and that the husband should not divorce his wife.”

Romans 7:1–3

·       Do you not know, brethren — for I am speaking to those who know the law — that the law is binding on a person only during his life? Thus a married woman is bound by law to her husband as long as he lives; but if her husband dies she is discharged from the law concerning the husband. Accordingly, she will be called an adulteress if she lives with another man while her husband is alive. But if her husband dies she is free from that law, and if she marries another man she is not an adulteress.

Christian Testaments: On Same-Sex Sexuality and Gender Diversity

Romans 1:26

·       In consequence, God has given them up to shameful passions. Their women have exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural.

Romans 1:27

·       And likewise also the men, giving up natural relations with women, burn with lust for one another; males behave indecently with males, and are paid in their own persons the fitting wage of such perversion.

Timothy 1:10

·       For whoremonger, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for menstealers, for liars, for perjured persons, and if there be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine.

1 Corinthians 6-9

·       Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind.

Well, then, for those who do not desire to have the United States transformed into a completed evangelical Christian nationalist theocracy, we need to wish for the good health of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, at least until the next national election on November 5, 2024.