Why Mike Johnson’s fake “Jefferson prayer” matters: Replacing facts with phony history is a linchpin of the Christian nationalist movement.

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1. There are going to be fewer roadblocks for the Christian Nationalist agenda with a conservative SCOTUS, an R majority in both houses *and* Trump in the White House come next year.

   But this agenda is both unconstitutional and spits in the face of prevailing and foundational American principles.

   So let’s take the time to shut down the revisionist horse shit from conservatives who claim that America was “founded on Christianity”

   Our nation was not founded on religious doctrine, but enlightenment era principles that turned away from the religious authority of the church, away from the divine right of kings, away from a national religion, and towards reason, rationality and democratic ideals.

   The framers relied on those enlightenment principles to write our founding documents and fervently opposed the merging of religion and government. They rejected the Church of England and repeatedly rebuked the idea of a national religion or church

   There is substantial evidence and documentation that points to these facts.

   For Christ’s sake, and quite literally, even Jesus believed in the separation of church and state

   Mark 12:17, Jesus said to them, *”Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”*

   Our founding fathers staunchly opposed any union between religion and government.

   In fact, some of them were devout deists, believing that rationality and reason should govern our society, not religion. That God has no hand in the matter.

   Thomas Jefferson coined the phrase “*a wall of separation between church and state”* in his letter to the Danbury Baptist association.

   Thomas Jefferson’s metaphor became part of constitutional jurisprudence. Jefferson was quoted by Chief Justice Morrison in Reynolds v. United States in 1878 and his writings on the separation of church and state have been referenced in a series of important legal cases throughout our history.

   Roger Williams, an early puritan minister, founder of the state of Rhode Island and the first Baptist Church in America, was the first public official to call for *”a wall or hedge of separation”* between *”the wilderness of the world”* and *”the garden of the church.”*

   There you have it, an early American statesman and minister, and a profound authority on the matter, acknowledging the need for this separation.

   James Madison interpreted Martin Luther’s “doctrine of two kingdoms”, as a conception of the separation of church and state.

   During a debate in the House of Representatives, Madison also contended *”Because if Religion be exempt from the authority of the Society at large, still less can it be subject to that of the Legislative Body.”*

   In his writings years later he documented his support for the *”total separation of the church from the state.”*

   *”Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States”,* Madison wrote, and he declared, *”practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government is essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution…”*

   John Locke also promoted this idea. In his, “A Letter Concerning Toleration,” Locke argued that, *”ecclesiastical authority must be separated from the authority of the state, or ‘the magistrate'”*

   Even George Washington supported this separation.

   George Washington, who wrote to a group of clergy who protested in 1789 against a lack of mention of Jesus Christ in the Constitution, stated *“You will permit me to observe that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.”*

   That same year, he wrote to the Baptists of Virginia, *“If I could conceive that the general [federal] government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure … no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.”*

   As for a more recent example, even John F. Kennedy, in his Address to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in 1960, stated, *”I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute”*

   Furthermore, *”One Nation under God”* wasn’t even added to the pledge of allegiance until the 1950s, when there was a moral panic and fundamentalist revival that unfairly persecuted anyone who was assumed to be gay, communist, atheist, or anything but a god fearing, red, white, and blue bleeding Christian “patriot” for that matter.

   The pledge of allegiance was first published in 1892 in an Issue of the *Youth’s Companion*, an American Children’s Magazine.

   Francis Bellamy a Christian SOCIALIST, who *”championed ‘the rights of working people and the equal distribution of economic resources, which he believed was inherent in the teachings of Jesus.”* worked for the magazine and drafted the “Pledge of Allegiance” as part of a marketing campaign to solicit subscriptions and sell U.S. flags to public schools.

   The issue coincided with the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus reaching the Americas, a marketing gimmick.

   Bellamy *”believed in the absolute separation of church and state”* and purposefully did not include the phrase *”under God”* in his pledge.

   What’s more, Bellamy *”viewed his Pledge as an ‘inoculation’ that would protect immigrants and native-born but insufficiently patriotic Americans from the ‘virus’ of radicalism and subversion.”*

   Additionally, *”In God we trust”* wasn’t officially adopted and mandated for our currency until the mid-20th century, as part of an effort to distinguish the U.S. from the big bad atheist communists of the Soviet Union.

   And all of that aside, I shouldn’t have to remind conservatives that our very first amendment prohibits the government from *”respecting an establishment of religion”*. While the Supreme Court has expanded on this clause, settling the debate further by establishing three basic rules that must be followed in order to not violate the clause.

   Government actions:

   – must have a secular purpose
   – must not promote or inhibit religion
   – must not create excessive entanglement between the church and state

   The fact of the matter is, Christian nationalism has never been and never will be a foundational code for this country, its government or its laws. Remember that it was the biblical literalists in the south who vocally defended slavery and inflamed the sectional conflict. A time when our nation was divided more than it’s ever been.

   It *is* self evident, that in the United States of America, religion has no place in government, and vice versa.

2. People are rewriting history to enlarge their wallet and validate their hypocrisy.

3. This is already old news. The world has already forgotten about this particular lie. There’s been plenty others since.

4. People like Moses Mike who believe in imaginary beings just make shit up with no compunction at all?

   Shocking!

5. I can give two shit about all your long winded and poignant arguments. This dipshit has a porn pact with his son, to stay away from porn and if he does watch porn he has to tell his son that he watched porn and vice versa. So you know at some point him and his son have talked about porn and what they watch. Which doesn’t help anything but just let them two fucking weirdos talk about porn. Hey fucking idiots how about just not watch porn.

6. * Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…

   [Treaty of Tripoli](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli#Article_11),

   > ratified by the United States Senate unanimously and without debate on June 7, 1797, taking effect June 10, 1797, with the signature of President John Adams.

7. Doesn’t this lying, sanctimonious, sack of shit know he’s not supposed to bear false witness?

   Kidding. He totally does. He just doesn’t give a fuck what his God says if it presents so much as a minor inconvenience.

8. Johnsin is right about demons pulling the strings of certain, just wrong about who’s strings those demons are pulling. Notably his

9. We gotta get over the fact that we’re dealing with straight up liars. Liars bought and shameless. Liars trying to be bought with no shame. Liars lying to cover up lies. Liars lying to distract from their lies. Liars lying just to bend reality to their lies. Life in America is lies now. The best lie wins.

10. Why it doesn’t matter:

    1. It will be forgotten in a week.
    2. It’s a common misattribution. Johnson didn’t invent the phony history.

    Yes, one should absolutely set the record straight, but this is a learning opportunity. Not everything needs to be made into a political scandal.

11. Because it proves he’s a bad faith actor who is trying to lead a non violent revolution that will ultimately destroy America as a superpower though that’s not his plan that just a consequence of his war on knowledge and science. Ninviolent uf the democrats allow it to be as a member of one of those libertarian think tanks recently said as a veiled threat.

12. American Christianity is a blasphemous disgrace. It’s obscene bastardized mockery of Christianity. It’s they took Jesus body of the cross and made him a puppets to spew hate speech and bile for them in a grotesque ventrilliquist act. Jesus wants you to buy a timeshare in Orlando Bobby. Jesus doesn’t want billionaires to pay taxes Jenny because in a past life they were selfless. God is great and wouldn’t let dupont poison the waters. No testing is required. amen.

13. Related to this topic, it’s worth pointing out that Christian nationalists would strip the right to vote from anyone that is not part of their very specific in-group. That group being anyone that wouldn’t be welcome in another white, Protestant movement – and for whom Johnson’s buddy Barton has provided cover in the past – [the Ku Klux Klan.](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1224382120)

14. >However, the biggest tell that Johnson was knowingly lying was how he introduced the prayer, saying it’s “quite familiar to historians.”

    When somebody says something like “as everybody knows” they are probably lying.

15. Lies, you’re talking about lies. Call it what it is. Christian nationalists are liars.

16. I wish we could tear down all their churches and build libraries on the rubble.

17. Everyone’s upset about this… WHERE IS HIS MONEYv WHERE ARE HIS BANK ACCOUNTS? Seriously people? Not going to look into this at all?

18. I mean, we’ve been dealing with phony history since at least the first civil war here.

19. Mike Johnson pushing a fake “Jefferson prayer” is a total red flag—twisting history to fit a Christian nationalist vibe is shady and straight-up divisive.

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