You’ve been in the news a lot lately because inexplicably you’ve been promoted to the lofty position of Speaker of the House. This is confusing to many Americans because you tried to overturn the last presidential election simply because your guy lost. It didn’t matter to you that Trump was using Christian nationalists like yourself to feed his raging narcissism and to avoid prosecution for the many crimes he committed. For Christian nationalists like you, the ends justify the means, even when those means are embodied in a rapist mobster. You don’t care about that as long as your unconstitutional theocratic ambitions are allowed to continue in defiance of millions of Americans who see theocratic Christian nationalism for the putrid, horrifying, and evil doctrine that it is. Fortunately, we have the first amendment to protect us from people like you despite the mental gymnastics you go through when you claim that the first amendment is to protect the church from the state.

From Cornell University Law School: https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/first_amendment

Christian nationalism seeks to unduly favor one religion over others. Not only that, it seeks to favor a very narrow version of one religion, Christianity, over other types of Christianity. For example, the United Church of Christ is a clearly Christian denomination that has long been open and affirming of LGBTQIA Christians, ordains women in ministry, supports a pregnant person’s right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term, and stands for social justice including justice for those oppressed by systemic racism. All of these things are abhorred by Christofascists such as yourself and those like you who seek to codify bigotry into law in defiance of the first amendment and the religious beliefs of many Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Sikhs, the Baha’i, and the rights of those who eschew religion altogether.

When you took the gavel as Speaker you claimed that it was ordained by God. I assume you were pointing to Romans 13 as justification for your thinking. The problems with that view are easy to show – firstly, Paul’s epistle to the Roman church was contextual to his time and place in history. Christians in Rome were a decided minority in an empire that demanded worship of the emperor and other displays showing piety to the state religion of the time. It does not speak specifically to your elevation to the role of Speaker. Secondly, using your logic, the first amendment is and has been the established authority in the U.S. for a long time now. As Paul wrote, “So he who opposes authority has opposed God’s ordination; and those who have made opposition will invite a verdict upon themselves.” Romans 13:2 So again, according to your own logic, you are in opposition to the established authority, not only the established authority of the first amendment, but also to the established authority of our ostensibly democratic elections which you tried without success to overthrow in favor of a bloviating sexual predator who wears a lot of make-up.

This week you tried to push through a bill that would under fund the IRS because the GOP wants to consolidate wealth into fewer and fewer hands by cutting taxes for the rich. Your motivation for this was to fund Israel’s war against Palestinians despite the fact that the IDF is engaging in daily war crimes, something that no follower of the Prince of Peace should ever sanction. Not only that, but once again, you are violating the text that you claim to follow. As Paul wrote in Romans 13:6-11, Christians are to pay their taxes (13:6-7); are not to commit murder or steal or covet, because every commandment can be summed up in, “Love your neighbor as yourself. Love does not work evil against the neighbor; hence love is the full totality of the Law.” (13:9-11) Everything you are doing as Speaker and as a Christofascist is in direct violation of this passage of Paul’s epistle. You are supporting murder and land theft, you are supporting the covetousness of the wealthy, and you are doing absolutely nothing to show love of neighbor as you support policies that inflict evil upon your neighbors in America and Israel’s neighbors in Gaza.

This all belies what you said about your so-called worldview when you claimed that on any issue you just look to the Bible for guidance. You look to the Bible only to find justification for your hatred of immigrants, LGBTQIA people, Muslims, Jews, the poor, and anyone else who doesn’t subscribe to the satanic ideology of Christian nationalism. Speaker Johnson, you are precisely the type of person Jesus preached so ardently against. I have no doubt that there are other ways in which you engage in hypocrisy and I hope that they come to light quickly because as mentioned previously, by your own logic you have invited a verdict upon yourself by attempting to subvert authority. May your term as Speaker be exceptionally short, may you truly repent of your wickedness and turn to the one who said, “A new commandment I give you: that you love one another. By this everyone will know that you are disciples to me, if you have love for one another.” John 13:34-35.

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