(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Conservative Christian Columnist Attacks Conservative Christian Speaker [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-11-05 David French is not my favorite NYT opinion writer. Still, this morning’s column, ‘MAGA Mike Johnson’ and Our Broken Christian Politics definitely caught my eye. French admits that not only is he a conservative Christian who looks to the Bible for inspiration, but he also once worked for the same Christian law firm, at the same time, as now-speaker Mike Johnson: Mike Johnson and I have such similar religious convictions that we once worked together at the same Christian law firm. We worked in different states and different practice groups (I focused on academic freedom), but we both defended religious liberty, and we’d most likely both say much the same things about, say, the inerrancy of Scripture. and then says: Yet we’ve taken very different political paths. Responding to Johnson’s claim that you can find his position on any political concern by looking at the Bible, French points out that the Bible doesn’t say anything about, for example, whether to fund the IRS modern political issues (corrected after several commentators pointed out that the Bible does indeed talk about taxes). However, French does see the Bible as a guide to Christian morality: Though the Bible isn’t a clear guide for American foreign policy, American economic policy or American constitutional law, it is a much clearer guide for Christian virtue. Here’s one such virtue, for example: honesty. And then proceeds to take Johnson to task for supporting the “Big Lie” and actively working to reverse the results of the presidential election. He compares Johnson’s rise to power with the decision, three days later, by another equally conservative Christian, Mike Pence, to drop out of the presidential race because he couldn’t overcome his one moment of honesty when he refused to screw up the ceremonial certification of the election (this is the paragraph which motivated me to write this diary): This is precisely indicative of the political ruthlessness that’s overtaken evangelical Republicans. They are inflexible about policy positions even when the Bible is silent or vague. They are flexible about morality even when the Bible is clear. One Christian man tells the truth, and it kills his career. Another Christian man helps lead one of the most comprehensively dishonest and dangerous political and legal efforts in American history, and he gets the speaker’s gavel. [emphasis added] French’s argument is that Johnson, and those who support him, are willing, even eager to lie, a clear violation of Biblical law, in pursuit of policy goals that their same Bible doesn’t even care about. There is another op-ed in today’s NYT that perfectly illustrates French’s point, so much so that I suspect the editors may have planned it that way. It’s by David Hackney, an obstetrician in Ohio who helped draft the amendment to protect a woman’s right to choose, Issue 1 on the ballot in Tuesday’s vote. Hackney writes in Abortion Rights Have Been Winning. Ohio Leaders Are Trying to Change That.: The November ballot initiative now inevitable, the anti-abortion strategy has shifted toward distraction and disinformation. Opponents of the reproductive freedom amendment have disingenuously asserted that it isn’t needed because abortion is already legal in the state until 22 weeks of pregnancy, but that’s only because the six-week abortion ban, which does not include exceptions for rape, incest or lethal fetal anomalies, is under injunction, awaiting a ruling from our State Supreme Court, which could arrive at any time. He describes how Ohio Republicans, aided by an anti-abortion majority on the state supreme court, substituted misleading language for the clear and plain text of the proposed amendment — another clear violation of the Biblical commandment against bearing false witness. Still, he does have hope: Voters can cut through the rhetoric and sleight of hand by reviewing the actual initiative and drawing their own conclusions, assuring Ohioans protection against cruel, extreme bans. Both of these are examples of what extreme Christians, and the Republican party, figured out a long time ago: They were never going to get and keep power in a fair fight. There was a moment some years ago when these same Christians blasted Muslims for believing (or so these Christians claimed) that it was allowed, even required, for them to cheat and lie in the service of Islam. Now, they are imitating them. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/5/2203742/-Conservative-Christian-Columnist-Attacks-Conservative-Christian-Speaker?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/