This article is an adapted version of the December 12, 2023 episode of the podcast Stop Christian Nationalism.

In the United States, the Speaker of the House of Representatives isn’t just the person who controls one house of the national legislature. The Speaker is second in the line of succession to become President of the United States. If something happens to kill the President and the Vice President, the Speaker of the House automatically becomes President.

On Tuesday, December 5, 2023, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Mike Johnson spoke before a meeting of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC.

The National Association of Christian Lawmakers is an explicitly Christian Nationalist organization. The following is what the NACL says about itself: 

“The mission of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers is to bring federal, state and local lawmakers together in support of clear biblical principles by meeting regularly to discuss major issues, propose model statutes, ordinances and resolutions to address major policy concerns from a biblical world view. We believe that America would be better off if more Christians would run for elected office at the local, state, and federal levels. The bible says in Psalm 33:12 ‘Blessed is the nation whose god is the lord.’ We need to elect more godly leaders in our nation at every level.”

The National Association of Christian Lawmakers is an organization dedicated to imposing Christian religious beliefs on everybody, using the power of local, state, and national government in the United States. Politicians who join the organization are required to sign a statement declaring that they believe in a “personal and imminent return” of Jesus to rule to Earth. The National Association of Christian Lawmakers also advocates for the “everlasting conscious punishment” of all non-Christians.

When Speaker of the House Mike Johnson gave his speech at the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, he believed that what he said would stay in the room, because journalists were forbidden from attending the meeting. What he didn’t know is that the organization was going to post a video of his speech on Facebook. This is what Johnson told the gathering of Christian Nationalists:

“I’ll tell you a secret, since the media is not here. Thank you for not allowing the media in. I’ll tell you a secret because they wanted to come, because they wanted to, you know, take my comments out of context, as they have been doing with great joy for the last few weeks. The lord impressed upon my heart a few weeks before this happened that something was going to occur, and the lord very specifically told me in my prayers to prepare, but to wait. ‘Prepare for what?’ I said to the lord. You know, I had this sense that we were going to come to a Red Sea moment in our Republican conference and the country at large.

Look, I’m a Southern Baptist. I don’t want to get too spooky on you, but all right, but the lord speaks to your heart, and he had been speaking to me about this, and the lord told me very clearly to prepare and be ready. Be ready for what? Okay, I don’t know. We’re coming to a Red Sea moment? What does that mean, lord?

Then, when the Speaker’s race happened, and Kevin McCarthy, who is a dear friend of mine, was deposed, vacated from the chair, oh wow, this is what the lord may have been preparing us for. And so, I was starting, praying more about that, and the the lord began to wake me up through this three week process that we’re in, in the middle of the night, and to speak things to me, to write things down, plans and procedures for how we could pull the conference together. 

Now, at the time, I assumed the lord is going to choose a new Moses, and thank you lord, you’re going to allow me to be Aaron to Moses, and so I worked to get Steve Scalise elected Speaker. That didn’t happen, and then, Jim Jordan, who is like another big brother of mine. No, that didn’t happen, and then Tom Emmer, and ultimately thirteen people ran for the post.

The lord kept telling me to wait, wait, wait. So I waited. I waited, and then at the end, when it came the end, the lord said ‘Now step forward.’ Me? I’m supposed to be Aaron. The lord said, ‘Step forward.’ So, Psalm 77 speaks of Exodus and the fourteen chapters of Exodus, and it says only god saw the path through the roiling sea. We could not see it. Men could not see it.

I believe deep in my heart, it is my core conviction, that god wants us to seek him for the path through the roiling sea.”

Let’s review what Speaker of the House Mike Johnson revealed during this speech.

• When he is alone, Mike Johnson has conversations with a disembodied voice that he believes comes from a supernatural spirit being that has a secret plan to manipulate the American government for its own purposes.

• Mike Johnson says that the American people must not be allowed to lead the way in their own country, because there’s a supernatural spirit who knows what’s best for the United States.

• Mike Johnson believes that he has personally been chosen by his magical spirit friend to be the leader of the United States of America.

• Although Mike Johnson wants to talk about the spirit voices he listens to as he directs the legislative agenda of the United States of America, he wants to keep his conversations with his these disembodied voices secret from the American people

• Mike Johnson believes that he has been given a prophecy that he will lead the United States of America as Moses led the Jews across the Red Sea as told in a story from the Jewish Torah thousands of years ago. He calls it a “Red Sea moment”.            

Listening to this speech, I noticed the way that Speaker of the House Mike Johnson spoke in a passive voice, as if his rise to power in the House of Representatives just happened to him, as if he wasn’t actively planning it and working to make it happen. As a matter of fact, Mike Johnson has been a member of corporate-funded right wing political organizations for years. He’s been working with the money provided by fossil fuels companies, not with magical prayer spells, to consolidate political power. There’s nothing magic about his rise to power. Mike Johnson has been playing a corrupt game of political maneuvering, working with earthly power brokers behind the scenes to rise through the ranks in Congress. Spirits and anointing by supernatural voices have nothing to do with it.

It should be concerning that Speaker Mike Johnson has chosen Moses as his model for leadership. Moses began his rise to power through violence, and then celebrated the suffering of the people around him through a series of “plagues”. In the Red Sea moment, Moses reveled in the deaths of a huge number of people. After the crossing of the Red Sea, Moses orchestrated the killing of his political opponents and their followers as punishment for their disloyalty. 

When Mike Johnson describes himself as a new Moses, granted power by the Christian god, referring to this moment in American history as a “Red Sea moment”, he is invoking a narrative of relentless religious violence.

It’s worth asking this question: If Speaker of the House Mike Johnson believes that he is Moses, crossing the Red Sea, who does he think the metaphorical Egyptians are in this moment? Who is he hoping to curse with plagues and drown to death?

Mike Johnson’s active membership in the National Association of Christian Lawmakers makes it clear: Johnson’s enemies are any Americans who refuse to bow down and worship the commands of his Christian Nationalist movement. If you’re not a Christian Nationalist, you’re one of the Egyptians in this bible story, and Mike Johnson believes that you deserve to be drowned.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has signed a document calling for the “everlasting conscious punishment” of anyone who resists his Christian Nationalist agenda, and he’s listening to voices in his head that are urging him to grab more and more power for himself. To have such a person in control of the United States House of Representatives at the very same time that Donald Trump is seeking to impose a Christian Nationalist dictatorship over the United States should make it clear what is at stake in the elections of 2024.