Within the moments earlier than he was to face a vote on changing into speaker of the Home this week, Consultant Mike Johnson posted {a photograph} on social media of the inscription carved into marble atop the chamber’s rostrum: “In God We Belief.”
His colleagues celebrated his candidacy by circulating an image of him on bended knee praying for divine steering with different lawmakers on the Home ground.
And in his first speech from the chamber as speaker, Mr. Johnson forged his ascendance to the place second in line to the presidency in spiritual phrases, saying, “I consider God has ordained and allowed every one in all us to be introduced right here for this particular second.”
Mr. Johnson, a mild-mannered conservative Republican from Louisiana whose elevation to the speakership on Wednesday adopted weeks of chaos, is understood for putting his evangelical Christianity on the heart of his political life and coverage positions. Now, as probably the most highly effective Republican in Washington, he is able to inject it squarely into the nationwide political discourse, the place he has argued for years that it belongs.
Mr. Johnson, 51, the son of a firefighter and the primary in his household to attend faculty, has deep roots within the Southern Baptist Conference, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. For years, Mr. Johnson and his spouse, Kelly, a licensed pastoral counselor, belonged to First Bossier, whose pastor, Brad Jurkovich, is the spokesman for the Conservative Baptist Community, a company working to maneuver the denomination to the correct.
Mr. Johnson additionally performed a number one position in efforts to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election and has expressed skepticism about some definitions of the separation of church and state, inserting himself in a more recent cohort of conservative Christianity that aligns extra carefully with former President Donald J. Trump and that some describe as Christian nationalism.
“Speaker Johnson actually does present a near-perfect instance of all of the completely different parts of Christian nationalism,” stated Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at Indiana College-Purdue College Indianapolis. He stated these included insisting on traditionalist household buildings, “being snug with authoritarian social management and getting rid of democratic values.”
Mr. Johnson declined an interview request and didn’t reply to a request for remark about whether or not he considers himself a Christian nationalist. However the little-known speaker of the Home has made clear that his religion is a very powerful factor to find out about him, and in earlier interviews, he has stated he believes “the founders wished to guard the church from an encroaching state, not the opposite method round.”
Over the arc of his profession, Mr. Johnson, a lawyer and a member of the Louisiana Legislature earlier than his election to Congress, has been pushed by a perception that Christianity is below assault and that Christian religion must be elevated within the public discourse, based on a assessment of his appearances on speak exhibits and podcasts, in addition to legislative speeches and writings over the previous 20 years.
He refers back to the Declaration of Independence as a “creed” and describes it as a “spiritual assertion of religion.” He believes that his era has been wrongly satisfied {that a} separation of church and state was outlined within the Structure.
In his first interview as speaker, Mr. Johnson described himself to the Fox Information host Sean Hannity as “a Bible-believing Christian” and stated that to know his politics, one solely want “decide up a Bible off your shelf and skim it. That’s my worldview.”
That features opposition not simply to abortion, which he has called “a holocaust,” and same-sex marriage, however to homosexuality itself, which he has written is “inherently unnatural” and a “harmful way of life.” He’s the sponsor of a bill that may prohibit the usage of federal funds for offering schooling to kids below 10 that included L.G.B.T.Q. subjects — a proposal that critics known as a nationwide model of Florida’s “Don’t Say Homosexual” regulation.
In a 2006 column for Townhall, a conservative web site, Mr. Johnson railed towards “the earnest advocates of atheism and sexual perversion.”
“This sprawling alliance of anti-God fanatics has confirmed frighteningly environment friendly at remaking America in their very own brutal, dehumanizing picture,” he wrote.
He added: “Within the area of some many years, they’ve managed to entrench abortion and gay habits, objectify kids into sexual objects, criminalize Christianity within the well-liked tradition, and promote guilt and self-doubt because the foremost qualities of our nationwide character.”
In Washington, the prime position of faith in Mr. Johnson’s political life is usually the very first thing colleagues study after they meet him.
“It doesn’t take lengthy,” stated Consultant Byron Donalds, Republican of Florida, who stated that Mr. Johnson typically begins conferences by main a prayer. “You’ll just about know that within the first 5 minutes. He’s really a humble man.”
But he isn’t shy about framing his political profession as a divinely pushed battle to place faith on the heart of American coverage and lawmaking. From gun violence to abortion to immigration, Mr. Johnson’s coverage views are formed by his perception that too many People are “denying existence of God himself.”
In remarks to a Louisiana congregation in 2016, Mr. Johnson linked school shootings to no-fault divorce legal guidelines (he’s in a covenant marriage together with his spouse, which makes divorce tougher), “radical feminism” and authorized abortion. “We’ve taught a complete era — couple of generations, now — of People that there is no such thing as a proper and improper,” he stated then.
In an episode of his podcast, “Fact Be Instructed,” Mr. Johnson defined how his faith drives his hard-line immigration stance, arguing that whereas the Bible teaches Christians to apply “private charity,” that commandment was “by no means directed to the federal government.”
“The left is taking it and utilizing it out of context,” Mr. Johnson stated. Welcoming the stranger, he added, is an exhortation to “particular person believers,” whereas the federal government’s responsibility is to implement legal guidelines — on this case, robust border management insurance policies to cease the inflow of migrants into america.
In lectures to pupil teams he addresses throughout the nation, Mr. Johnson has lamented: “There’s no transcendent rules anymore. There’s no everlasting decide. There’s no absolute requirements of proper and improper. All that is precisely the other of the way in which we have been based as a rustic.”
It’s a viewpoint fervently embraced by a lot of the hard-right Republican base, which reveres Mr. Trump and identifies together with his frequent claims of being persecuted, aggrieved and appeared down upon by liberal elites.
On his podcast, which he co-hosts together with his spouse, Mr. Johnson typically bemoans what he considers to be the repression of spiritual views in America.
“What we discovered was typically the Christian viewpoint is just not given equal therapy and equal platform and equal probability,” he stated in a single episode, based on transcripts of the exhibits compiled by the Brookings Establishment. “Fairly often spiritual viewpoints, particularly Christian viewpoints, are censored and silenced.”
In the identical episode, Mr. Johnson stated the removing of faith from public colleges had a “tragic impact,” including: “Persons are separating what’s spiritual, quote unquote, with quote unquote actual life, proper? And that dichotomy was by no means meant by the founding fathers.”
He stated that generally “hostile” interviewers would ask him why he represented solely Christians in his work as a lawyer doing spiritual liberty litigation, and never, say, Muslims or Jews.
“I might say as a result of the very fact may be very easy: There may be not an open effort to silence and censor the viewpoints of different religions,” he stated. “It is just and all the time the Christian viewpoint that’s getting censored.” He added, “The very fact is the left is all the time making an attempt to close down the voices of the Christians.”
His colleagues on Capitol Hill describe Mr. Johnson as not notably verbose or flamboyant, somebody who lacks a flashy social media presence and should get misplaced in a sea of consideration seekers. However his extra mellow fashion can masks the truth that he proselytizes extraordinarily hard-line views and has been hitting the right-wing speak present circuit doing that for many years.
Within the 2000s, Mr. Johnson, then a lawyer and spokesman for the anti-abortion and anti-gay rights group Alliance Protection Fund, was additionally a prolific author, posting columns to Townhall and writing opinion items for his native newspaper in Shreveport.
In his writings, he harshly criticized opponents on the left and those that didn’t share his beliefs. Nearly all the time, the views he espoused have been intertwined together with his Christian beliefs.
In 2007, Mr. Johnson wrote a column claiming ulterior motives by proponents of the “Day of Silence,” an annual occasion the place supporters pledge silence to carry consideration to bullying and harassment of L.G.B.T.Q. college students.
“The occasion is being offered to sympathetic schoolteachers and directors as a delicate plea for sexual tolerance and understanding,” he wrote. “However the actual agenda is to gild and glamorize gay habits whereas gagging anybody who opposes it.”
“Specialists mission that gay marriage is the darkish harbinger of chaos and sexual anarchy that would doom even the strongest republic,” he wrote in an article in 2004.
On Thursday, Mr. Hannity requested him to elucidate a few of his beforehand acknowledged views about same-sex marriage, which is broadly supported throughout the nation, together with amongst many Republicans.
“I don’t even keep in mind a few of them,” Mr. Johnson stated of his earlier feedback. “I genuinely love all folks, no matter their way of life selections. This isn’t concerning the folks themselves.”
Mr. Johnson’s political profession has been a uncommon glide path that has put him in probably the most highly effective place in Congress with out ever having run a aggressive race. When he took workplace within the Louisiana Home of Representatives in 2015, he ran unopposed for a seat that had been vacated. In his first run for Congress in 2016, he handily defeated his Democratic opponent, Marshall Jones, and final 12 months he ran unopposed for his seat.
He has additionally recorded over a thousand interviews on speak radio and tv — a lot of it from his time on the Alliance Protection Fund, now known as the Alliance Defending Freedom — leaving an extended path of phrases that assist paint an image of an arch-conservative who promotes a literal studying of the Bible.
In 2015, Mr. Johnson supplied authorized providers to Solutions in Genesis, a fundamentalist Christian group based by Ken Ham that rejects scientific findings about evolution and the early historical past of the cosmos. The group cites “the Phrase of God” in saying that the universe is 6,000 years old and means that “we merely have been indoctrinated to consider it seems outdated.” The universe is actually about 13.8 billion years outdated, astronomers typically agree.
It retained Mr. Johnson after tourism officers in Kentucky refused to grant tax incentives for the constructing of a Noah’s Ark theme park, citing the group’s plan to require staff to submit a press release of religion. Mr. Johnson efficiently sued in 2015, arguing that the denial of tax breaks was discriminatory.
Mr. Johnson praised Ark Encounter, the theme park, which incorporates dinosaurs in its life-size reproduction of the ark, in a 2021 interview with Mr. Ham as he guest-hosted the radio present of Tony Perkins, the president of the Household Analysis Council, whom he has known as his “authentic mentor.”
“The Ark Encounter is one method to carry folks to this recognition of the reality that, you understand, what we learn within the Bible are precise historic occasions, and that there are implications to what you do with all these tales within the Bible there,” Mr. Johnson stated.
Mr. Donalds, who ran unsuccessfully for speaker towards Mr. Johnson this week, stated Mr. Johnson’s choice to hunt the place was about “being obedient to the Lord.” He stated that was a great factor for Home Republicans.
“You could have a speaker who is just not searching for the highlight simply to be within the highlight,” Mr. Donalds stated. “He’s answering a name.”
Benjamin Mueller contributed reporting.