Mike Johnson’s Ahistorical Theology
On nations, borders, and laws.
So, Speaker Johnson provides a fairly typical conservative Christian answer to a question from a reporter in response to a criticism leveled at US deportation policy by the Pope.
Here’s the verse that the Pope cited.
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,
Here’s Johnson’s sanctimonious response.
Some thoughts on this below.
Please note: I am not arguing for a specific application of Christian texts to American politics. Rather, I seek to translate what Johnson is saying to an audience that may not be familiar with the language he is using, as well as to note that if his goals are to apply Christian ethics and morality to American politics, which he claims to be doing, he is doing a piss-poor job of doing so.
Also, as someone who taught international relations and comparative politics, the way he uses “nation” irks me, but it is also a reminder of what contemporary white nationalism is trying to accomplish.
First, I so thoroughly recognize the smug, condescending confidence in Johnson. He sincerely thinks that his ability to quote a series of verses from the Christian Bible is a slam-dunk argument. In his mind, what he is saying is self-affirming truth. Never mind that that is not how arguments work.
Second, while there has been a growing alliance of conservative American Catholic with conservative evangelicals (see, e.g., J.D. Vance), I have little doubt that Johnson has some anti-papal prejudices deep in his Southern Baptist identity.
And while I understand that protestants believe in the “priesthood of all believers,” there is something pretty astounding that Johnson, not even a clergyman but a layman, thinks he can get into a Bible verse-off with the head of the Catholic Church. It certainly comes across as arrogant.
Third, he makes a number of utterly ahistorical claims, which is common for American evangelicals, in trying to apply modern understandings of geopolitics to the world of thousands of years ago. A common error is to assume that “nation” as used in Biblical texts is the same thing that is meant in contemporary society. This is not the case.
A “nation” properly understood is a people group with a common language, history, religion, etc. As such, the Jewish people were a “nation,” and that is what the ancient texts mean. They are not referring to clearly delineated borders of the type we are used to. It is noteworthy that in the Biblical account, the Jewish nation predates the establishment of Israel. The people and the land are separate. Moreover, it is noteworthy that “Israel” is named after a single man, who headed the nation, because that nation was made up of his descendants.
Just some examples from Deuteronomy 7:1: ” When the LORD your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations—the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites, seven nations larger and stronger than you.” These are people groups or tribes, not countries in the modern sense.
Such usages are radically different than what we mean in 2026 when we use the word “nation,” by which we usually mean “nation-state” or “country.” I could go into a deeper discourse on the words country, state, nation, and nation-state, but that would be a lengthy post. I will note that there is a distinction to be made between colloquial usages of those terms and more precise deployments. For example, the United Nations really ought to be called either the United States or the United Countries, as the member units aren’t really nations in the true sense of the word, but rather a group of sovereign states or countries. We should speak not of “international relations,” but instead of “interstate relations.”
Some of that is pedantry, but also precision. However, language is what language is, and so we learn that words have multiple meanings and that context often has to lead the way. But it also means that it is easy for people to read ancient texts and assume that words have always meant the exact same thing over time, when this is not the case.
I will note, however, that there is a contemporary reason to think about what a “nation” is. What we are seeing with people who talk about “Heritage Americans” and fall into the camp of White nationalists or Christian nationalists is an attempt to reclaim the idea that a “nation” is, in fact, defined by a group of homogenous people in terms of skin color, religion, etc.
They are seeking to truly make “country” equal “nation” in the way that it was used in the past. I would also note that the US has never been a “nation” in some homogenous way, so they are seeking something that never was.
Fourth, it is simply ahistorical to use the Biblical texts as any kind of definitive statement on the borders of sovereign states. The notion of the sovereign state is a relatively modern notion that dates to the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. Neither Abraham nor Paul would have a clue as to what Johnson is talking about in terms of modern borders. It was literally a different world.
I get the notion that one can try to analogize things like walls around cities and vague control of territory to modern borders, but they simply are not the same thing. It is more than a stretch to assert some Biblical basis for a specific set of immigration policies.
Fifth, even if Romans 13 can be used by Christians to assert that government should be respected, it says nothing about the content of public policy.
Here’s the passage:
13 Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3 For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. 4 For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
6 This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. 7 Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.
Two thoughts.
- This says nothing about whether there should be more open or more restricted borders. As such, the law could be changed at any time to any version of the law and still conform to the above. This passage tells us nothing about what the law should be.
- It is interesting to note that if Johnson took the above seriously, then it should apply to all previous presidents and congresses as well, meaning that whatever Biden did was endorsed by God as well. Somehow, that’s not the view when Democrats are in office, including his rant about Biden/Harris above.
Sixth, it really is a remarkable stretch that conservative evangelicals engage in when they ignore two key passages from their own religious texts. First, is that Jesus himself stated that the second greatest commandment was “to love your neighbor as yourself,” as well as asserting the Golden Rule to “do unto others as you would have done unto you.” The second is that the tale of the Good Samaritan is all about how to treat a foreigner, even one who is disliked. It is impossible to look at what has been happening in Minneapolis or when people are exiled to places like CECOT and see Jesus. Understand, I am not asserting that Christian ethics should be the guiding force of US policy, but Mike Johnson claims to want to do so.
Along those lines, I see absolutely no Biblical command that all of these ethical teachings should only apply to individuals and not to broader society. That has always seemed like a cop out to me.
The Bible is a work of fiction. Just sayin’
As a guy raised in the Baptist church, I say Amen and Amen to everything you wrote here.
As an obnoxious pedant, I say I think you quoted the wrong verse. Mathew 25:35, which I think is what the Pope cited, says “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”
Not really a problem. The Trad Catholics and Integralists seem to practice a strain of anti-papism themselves, at least against popes since Vatican II. They see themselves as holier than the Pope.
I’ve long maintained that evangelicals should be regarded as pseudo-Jewish, as they seem to pay little attention to the New Testament. Little beyond shouting “Jaaaaybus” at every opportunity. Like all good religious texts, people can find whatever they want in the Bible.
Lakoff talked about conservatives being able to think through complex causality, but default to thinking in terms of simple morality. You naively think feeding the poor, healing the sick, aiding strangers and such is about the poor, the sick, and the stranger. For them it’s all about their personal morality in doing those things. It does their sense of morality no good to have the government do those things. They reject Utilitarianism because it all about ends, it’s the means that are important to them.
“I was a stranger, and you arrested and deported me. Good Job!!”
To state the obvious (I think), conservatism always looks back at an imaginary past, never a real one.
You never get a meaningful response when you ask to which year we should return.
So feature, not a bug.
@Daryl: I think that is beside the point. If Johnson and others want to use a religious text as a basis of policymaking, regardless of what anyone else thinks about it, then it is fair to hold them to the standard they have chosen. This would be true of someone using a philosophical text, like Marx’s Capital or any of Rand’s novels.
@Roger: Not pedantic at all! I am not sure what I was doing there. Thanks for the correction.
Religion and morality are like fiscal responsibility and a balanced budget; they are buzzwards to enhance the power of the current rulers who are Messrs Johnson and Trump. The way they use the words has nothing to do with spiritual seeking for transcendence of quotidian life. Quoting scripture to them is futile. It is genuinely wrestling with a pig to support cleanliness. I’m not a Christian, but neither is Johnson. He is a whited sepulcher.
@Steven L. Taylor:
They don’t even have the real text. they have a 17th century Ye Olde English translation of who knows what concatenation of translations and misinterpretations and errors which have accumulated for over 2,000 years.
@Kathy: I understand. But that is also beside the point.
They claim to follow the text they have.
This:
And this:
And this:
…pretty much sums up my experience with a significant subset of the Republican party back when I was working in politics, which played an outsized role in me GTFO of politics.
I simply could not stand being around people who were so smug and yet so wrong (like, literally wrong about history, science, etc.) so much of the time. It was crazy-making. I saw their growing influence and couldn’t get away from it fast enough.
It’s incredibly depressing.
Of late I seem to see New Right types asking ‘what is a country?’ A geographical area with a population and a government is too simple, they want some metaphysical definition leading to ethno-nationalism. The Treaty of Versailles tried to break up the defeated empires into what the winners thought were logical ethno-nation states. Long ago I read The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End. It’s a history of the very bloody failure of this effort. The Nazis were far from the worst to emerge in Eastern Europe.
The boat sailed on the U. S. being a “nation” in the Biblical, tribal sense long ago. But elements of the New Right think they can make us into such a thing and force the rest of us to belong or submit.
Reading between the lines…