1 I will sing of your love and justice; to you, LORD, I will sing praise.
2 I will be careful to lead a blameless life— when will you come to me? I will conduct the affairs of my house with a blameless heart.
3 I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. I hate what faithless people do; I will have no part in it.
4 The perverse of heart shall be far from me; I will have nothing to do with what is evil.
In the 17th Psalm, we find that David calls out to God that he would walk with a pure heart and speak what is true. We can see these words:
(1) Hear a just cause, O Lord, Attend to my cry; Give ear to my prayer which is not from deceitful lips.
2 Let my vindication come from Your presence; Let Your eyes look on the things that are upright.
3 You have tested my heart; You have visited me in the night; You have tried me and have found nothing; I have purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
4 Concerning the works of men, By the word of Your lips, I have kept away from the paths of the destroyer.
5 Uphold my steps in Your paths, That my footsteps may not slip.
He has been, by all accounts, a devoted family man, a husband and father, active in his church, a religious liberty attorney, and a media host. Just recently, he attained the position of Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, which is third in succession to the White House.
I think you could safely say that many in Christian policy arena are very impressed with Mike Johnson and consider him an ally. He has a healthy viewpoint of the role of faith in government and has lived out his personal Christian faith, allowing it to govern the policies he embraces.
And, for that, according to some media accounts, you'd think that he was ill-equipped to be speaker. It's actually become quite ridiculous - the attempts to smear this man's good name and to portray the practice of Biblical Christianity as somehow extreme.
Take on of the latest attempts to ridicule Mike Johnson. Newsweek related a story having to do with the accountability that Mike and his son have to God and to one another to follow Scripture and to remain pure in their thought life. The publication said: "Johnson...who was first elected to Congress in 2016, spoke in 2022 about how he installed software called Covenant Eyes on his devices during a panel called "War on Technology" at Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, Louisiana, Rolling Stone reported."
The article goes on to say:
According to a clip first posted on X, formerly Twitter, by a user called Receipt Maven, Johnson spoke about how the subscription-based service helps people abstain from internet porn and "objectionable" websites.Johnson is quoted as saying, "We do all of it. And then it sends a report to your accountability partner. So my accountability partner right now is Jack, my son… He's 17. So he and I get a report of all the things that are on our phones, all of our devices, once a week. If anything objectionable comes up, your accountability partner gets an immediate notice. I'm proud to tell ya, my son has got a clean slate."
He’s been called a “sinister creep,” “MAGA toxicity at its worst,” a “religious fanatic,” which was tame considering that Bill Maher compared him to the Maine shooter that same segment. “And, you know, we don’t know much about the guy [Robert Card] yet, but apparently, he heard voices, and I thought: ‘Is he that different than Mike Johnson?’”And, so much for the policy of leaving a lawmaker's family alone. There has been criticism of his wife, Kelly, who is a Christian counselor. Insider notes:
One of the most fascinating attacks on Johnson is the media’s obsession with his covenant marriage to his wife of 25 years, Kelly. To hear some tell it, it’s a cruel idea that “harms women” and “keeps them locked inside their own houses.”
That’s laughable to the policy’s creator, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who authored the law that Mike and thousands of other couples across three states have embraced since the late 1990s. The whole point, Tony explained to Breitbart, was to help break the cycle of divorce. “It was to strengthen and promote the institution of marriage by recognizing its importance to society. As government budgets have become bloated by the effort to address the cultural pathologies created by the demise of marriage, covenant marriage was an effort to go to the source of the problem.”
Kelly Johnson's website listed a specialty in Temperament counseling, a specialty that she received training for from an organization founded in the 1980s by a Christian couple. According to the materials the organization provides, the National Christian Counselor's Association is adamant that its offerings take place outside of more traditional state-licensed settings so that counselors and clients can be fully engaged through their faith.Remember Robert Downen, who "broke" the story about sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention at the Houston Chronicle? The one who seems to have been a reliable mouthpiece for those who would want to promote a narrative to divide the Convention? Well, he is apparently concerned about the relationship of Johnson to a noted Christian historian, and wrote about it at the Texas Tribune. He states:
"The state licensed professional counselor in certain states is forbidden to pray, read or refer to the Holy Scriptures, counsel against things such as homosexuality, abortion, etc," a catalog of the organization's offerings states. "Initiating such counsel could be considered unethical by the state."
Johnson recently spoke at an event hosted by Barton’s nonprofit, WallBuilders; he’s praised Barton and his “profound influence on me, and my work, and my life and everything I do”; and, before his career as a lawmaker, Johnson worked for Alliance Defending Freedom — a legal advocacy group that has helped infuse more Christianity into public schools and government, a key goal of Barton’s movement.
Barton, who lives in Aledo, has been a staple of Texas’ own Christian conservative movement, offering crucial public support to politicians and frequently being cited or called on to testify in favor of bills that critics say would erode church-state separations — including in front of the Texas Legislature this year.
Johnson’s election — and his proximity to Barton — is a massive victory for a growing Christian nationalist movement that claims the United States’ foundation was ordained by God, and therefore its laws and institutions should favor their brand of Christianity.
“Johnson's rise means that Barton and his fellow Christian nationalists now have unprecedented access to the levers of power on the national stage, paralleling the access they already have here in Texas and some other states,” said David Brockman, a non-resident scholar in religion and public policy at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.
There it is: the big "CN!" Christian nationalist - the label that is slapped on Christians who want to impact the culture by applying their faith principles in the arena of government. You know, people just love to have their government influenced by a variety of non-religious organizations that represent values that are contrary to Scripture, but allow a Christian who actually "walks the talk" and wants to influence the culture for good by endorsing Christian principles and it's "Christian nationalism," a term that has been weaponized against certain people of faith.
Johnson, for his part, seems to be exhibiting grace under pressure. He is quoted in this part of an article that ran at FoxNews.com:
"Look, there are entire industries that are built to take down public leaders – effective political leaders like me. I’m not surprised by that. I mean, it comes with the territory. It doesn’t bother me at all," Johnson responded.
"I just wish they would get to know me," he continued, adding, "I’m not trying to establish Christianity as the national religion or something. That’s not what this is about at all."
He then discussed how the Bible commands to show peace and love toward all people.
"If you truly believe in the Bible’s commands, and you seek to follow those, it’s impossible to be a hateful person because the greatest command in the Bible is that you love God with everything you had, and you love your neighbor as yourself," he said.
The Washington Stand records the response of David Closson of Family Research Council, commenting on one of Johnson's colleagues taking offense that Johnson said that "God is the one that raises up those in authority:"
“This is just basic Christian belief coming right out of the Bible,” responded David Closson, director of Family Research Council’s Center for Biblical Worldview, “that God is the one that ordains authority. God is the one that gives delegated authority to human beings to wield it on his behalf.” He appealed to Daniel 2:21, “he removes kings and sets up kings,” and Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.”
For all intents and purposes, it seems that Mike Johnson is a Christian believer who lives out his faith - not in arrogance nor for political gamesmanship, but because he believes that God has placed him in this position to use him for His - God's - glory. So, how are we allowing God to use us in the position in which we are placed?
It is astonishing the extent to which media outlets and social media devotees are committed to destroying someone who appears to be an exemplary public servant. And, as Johnson pointed out, there are "entire industries that are built to take down public leaders." I think this really shows the extent to which Christians are branded as enemies in our current culture. We can be resolute in walking in the ways of the Lord, no matter what the consequences. Our job is not to please people, but to please the Lord - and in the act of pleasing Him, there will be those who are drawn to our Savior through our faithfulness. Jesus attracted crowds, but some in the crowd were devoted to bringing Him down. We have to make sure we are doing what we do in the right way for the right reasons.
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