House Speaker Mike Johnson has never tried to hide or downplay his Christian beliefs. That they are deeply held and are a large part of the fabric of his being is undeniable.
Those beliefs don't countenance violence or doing harm to others. They teach the believer to lead a life of self-denial and giving to others.
Johnson and his wife have raised their children in this belief system. Apparently, this is "controversial." Why?
According to ABC News, Johnson and his daughter Hannah attended a father/daughter dance known in some Christian circles as a "purity ball," which features a "purity pledge" by the daughter to her father, mother, and her future husband and children.
Hannah pledged "to make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future husband, and my future children ... to a lifetime of purity, including sexual purity." Radical devancy like this needs to be exposed.
ABC News described the purity ball as "a controversial formal dance event, popular among some conservative Christians, that gained notoriety in the early 2000s."
What's "controversial" about a daughter pledging abstinence until marriage and fidelity afterwards?
I guess slutty teenage girls aren't "controversial," while virgins should be shamed for their "controversial" beliefs. The real reason is that feminists want to be the ones doing the brainwashing of teenage girls, not Christian parents.
Since growing in popularity in the 1990s and early 2000s, purity balls and purity pledges have faced increased scrutiny from both inside and outside the Christian community, ranging from criticism that the practice places too much of a burden on young women to accusations that the balls themselves objectify young girls.
Linda Kay Klein, author of the book "Pure: Inside the Evangelical Movement That Shamed a Generation of Young Women and How I Broke Free," told ABC News that purity balls are not as common as other hallmarks of the purity movement, like purity rings, and that they tend to be more popular among more conservative Christian factions.
"In my book I talk about eternal girlhood," Klein said. "There's this way in which purity culture attempts to create this eternal girlhood among girls -- you never really grow up, you never really have headship over your own life. You ultimately are there to be guided by and to support and to champion and to be led by somebody greater than you: a man."
That may be the case in some conservative Christian households, just like it's the case in many orthodox Jewish households and Muslim households. There is nothing controversial to the vast majority of Americans about a family devoutly believing in God and looking to follow those beliefs in the way their lives are lived and the way they raise their children.
What makes it "controversial" to ABC News is that it's different. In a liberal culture that celebrates "diversity" so hard, it's apparent that only some diversity will be tolerated. Other kinds of "diversity" are mocked or, as in this case, warned against.
"One of the primary purposes of the law in civil government is to restrain evil," Johnson said on one radio show in 2010, according to CNN. "We have to acknowledge collectively that man is inherently evil and needs to be restrained." Since Johnson was summarizing the worldview of most of the men who wrote the Constition, it's hard to see how that's controversial.
Johnson is describing the "classical Christian consciousness" that animated most of the founders, most notably Hamilton and Madison. That view held that man was inherently evil and that governments are constituted to restrain the evil impulses of men. This worldview was contradicted by Jefferson's "secular democratic consciousness," which believed in the "perfectability" of man.
Historian Page Smith argues that the Constitution was written at the last possible moment in human history when the "classical Christian consciousness" could prevail. After the turn of the 19th century and Jefferson's presidency, it would have been too late.
We see these two worldviews clashing almost every day in the courts, legislatures, and any place where closely held beliefs are challenged. It makes for a unique push-pull in American society that, in many important ways, defines our exceptional nature as a country.
It's stupid to fear Johnson and devout Christians. But the left, like everyone else, fears what they don't understand. And why a teenage girl would deny herself sexual pleasure is a mystery to them.
