Thoughts on Mike Johnson and the Christo-Fascist Theocrats of the GOP

In 1950, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who had not long before prosecuted the leading Nazi War Criminals at Nuremberg, wrote:

“[I]n our country are evangelists and zealots of many different political, economic and religious persuasions whose fanatical conviction is that all thought is divinely classified into two kinds — that which is their own and that which is false and dangerous.” — Justice Robert H Jackson, American Communications Assn. v. Douds, 339 US 382, 438; 70 SCt. 674, 704 (1950)

I do apologize for not publishing more articles lately, and believe me, I wanted to write. However, I have been so busy taking care of my wife after her latest heel surgery, grading, and writing tests for my three high school history classes, and working on my doctorate that I have been too pooped to pop. I write this after writing three tests before I grade essays on the 100 Years War, Ancient Israel, and the early English colonies. After that, I need to write three dialogue responses for my current class on strategic planning before moving on to my first minor project, due at midnight Sunday.

So, my next series of posts will be shorter than usual and focus on thoughts I have gathered from past articles, mostly comprised of quotes and passages excerpted from past articles on my legacy site at WordPress. Today, I am focusing on what Barry Goldwater, the scion of the modern conservative movement, a radical by almost any standard, had to say about the Christian Right. He discussed these things well before we ever thought of the term Christian Nationalist because they were the fringe but an evergrowing power in the Republican Party of his day.

In 1981, Goldwater addressed the problem on the Senate floor.

“The religious factions growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent.”

After he left the Senate he was interviewed by John Dean, the White House Counsel who flipped on Richard Nixon during Watergate. He told Dean:

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.” November 1994, in John Dean, Conservatives Without Conscience.

“Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview. That’s what I believe.” Speaker Mike Johnson when asked about what he believed on any given issue.

Today we live in a country where a minority of extremist Christian Nationalists have taken control of the House of Representatives, with one of the most extreme men in the movement, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, the Speaker of the House. Time forbids me to go into detail here about all of his beliefs, and statements on policy. However, he was the member who wrote an amicus brief for Texas’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election. The brief and the move were so unconstitutional that the Supreme Court threw them out. Johnson views women as little more than breeders and has extreme views on abortion that most Republicans oppose. Likewise, he opposes any civil rights for LGBTQ+ people, and he has said that he believes in 18th-century values. Those were the values that held that God ordained slavery and women had no rights.

I am glad that I went to a Southern Baptist seminary before the fundamentalist takeover that left men like Johnson in power. It was at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary that I learned about the importance of religious liberty and the necessity of the separation of church and state.

George Truett, the great Southern Baptist Pastor who served as President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary wrote in his book Baptists and Religious Liberty in 1920 about the decidedly negative effect of when the Church became the State religion:

“Constantine, the Emperor, saw something in the religion of Christ’s people which awakened his interest, and now we see him uniting religion to the state and marching up the marble steps of the Emperor’s palace, with the church robed in purple. Thus and there was begun the most baneful misalliance that ever fettered and cursed a suffering world…. When … Constantine crowned the union of church and state, the church was stamped with the spirit of the Caesars…. The long blighting record of the medieval ages is simply the working out of that idea.”

Mike Johnson upholds the worst of the Christian political tradition, a tradition that most of our founders came to this country to flee. Contrary to claims of Mike Johnson and other Christian Nationalists our founders were Enlightenment thinkers and our country was founded on Enlightenment, not biblical values, or any Christian creed. The country was founded on an idea, not a creed. It was the idea that “all men are created equal.”

For Johnson who is a member of the Southern Baptist Church to talk about creeds is laughable. He obviously is ignorant of Baptist history as Baptists were founded by men who believed in the total separation of Church and State, and who opposed Creeds. however, Johnson wants to impose them on the country.

That is why another Baptist, John Leland, a supporter of Jefferson and Madison when they wrote the Virginia Statute on Religious Liberty and the First Amendment wrote:

“The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever. … Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”

So until the next time, thank you for reading and subscribing.