This morning I set out to write an article praising newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as a champion of religious liberty because of his work with Alliance Defending Freedom, but as I was searching for articles about Johnson’s work with that organization, a different trend emerged.
Notice the words in there (and notice that left-leaning search results prevail): “troubling,” “against gay rights,” “Christian nationalist,” “anti-democratic,” “hate group.” Like Pavlov’s dogs, the left-wing media rush to condemn any conservative Christian who chooses to bend his knee to Jesus rather than bow to the whims of culture.
One of the main things that these left-wing outlets cite is the fact that Johnson worked with the Alliance Defending Freedom, which the Southern Poverty Law Center characterizes as a “hate group.” That’s like a teenage girl characterizing something as “I can’t even.” Both declarations prompt shaking heads and rolling eyes.
But it’s not just far-left outlets and mainstream media sites going after Johnson for his evangelical Christianity. Certain sites that claim to be representing mainstream Christian thought and dialogue are attacking the new House speaker.
Recommended: America’s Largest Evangelical Magazine Continues to Drift to the Left
Rather than going to the trouble of doing its own work, Christianity Today, increasingly a bastion of antipathy toward conservative Christians, lazily ran a wire article about Johnson from Religion News Service. The sneering headline, “Evangelical Mike Johnson ‘Raised Up’ as House Speaker,” tells us enough, but the article goes out of its way to mention that Johnson “penned a number of editorials while working at ADF, including ones in which he decried homosexuality as an ‘inherently unnatural’ and ‘dangerous lifestyle’ that could lead to the collapse of ‘the entire democratic system.’”
Once you’ve gotten up from your fainting couch, keep going. Though the article does cite a statement by Brent Leatherwood, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission praising Johnson, who is Southern Baptist, it spent as much time quoting Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), a rising star on the far left who hasn’t met a microphone he didn’t like.
In the article’s quote from Frost, the Democrat doesn’t mention Johnson at all, but the author uses Frost to tie Johnson to that most brittle of straw men: “Christian nationalism.” Back in December, I explained why “Christian nationalism” isn’t an issue:
Is “Christian nationalism” something we should worry about? No, although a certain strain of it that people are calling for could be problematic. But these people are on the fringes.
Making America a Christian nation isn’t about taking political power. It’s about building faithful families, strong churches, and organizations that speak for biblical values. It’s also about Christians reaching their neighbors with the life-changing truth of the Gospel. Those are the only factors that will allow Christians to turn this nation around.
In reality, “Christian nationalism” is an epithet that the left likes to use anytime a conservative Christian takes a place in power. Leftists wave the arms of the straw man wildly to make it look even more menacing. You see, the left only wants leftists to use scripture; when a conservative does (especially correctly), it’s “playing with fire.”
What we do know is that the left hates Mike Johnson, and that’s a good thing. Here’s hoping it means that he’ll lead the House as a true, unabashed, and unbending conservative.
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