Reverend David Key writes that if we want to have any sort of religious freedom we cannot allow him.
Reverend David Key writes,” We ca n’t let him have any sense of religious freedom.” Reverend David Key writes,” If we want any sense of religious freedom, we ca n’t let him.”
Reverend David Key writes that if we want to have any sort of religious freedom we cannot allow him.
Enlarge. Photo by Gage Skidmore, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. Recently elected U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, spoke to participants at the 2023 Annual Leadership Summit of the Republican Jewish Coalition. The event was held in Las Vegas, Nevada in October 2023. Johnson, a man of deep religious conviction, is someone with whom many Americans, including myself, can identify. However, it is less pleasant to consider Johnson’s enduring mission to apply his personal beliefs on others through the power of the government. As a Southern Baptist minister sharing Johnson’s faith tradition, my perspective deviates significantly: the distinction between religion and government is crucial for all religions, including ours, to prosper. Lately, Johnson criticized the constitutional tenet of dividing church and state, labeling it as a “misinterpretation.” The remainder of his professional journey followed a similar pattern: He acknowledged Christian nationalist leader David Barton as a major influence, took up the position of dean at an unsuccessful Christian law school named for radical Baptist leader Paul Pressler, and committed his services to right-wing Christian legal organizations. The growing assaults on the separation of church and state nationwide is concerning, especially with Johnson’s election as speaker symbolizing a disturbing pattern. For instance, the state of Oklahoma is presently striving to create the nation’s inaugural religious public charter school that would apply public funds to promote Catholicism in its educational program.
