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Evangelicals long have been a powerful force in Republican politics, but Rep. Mike Johnson’s ascension to the speaker’s post marked a new chapter for the Christian right. The Louisiana Republican spent almost a decade serving on the board of the policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention and taught at Liberty University, a prominent Christian college in Virginia.
Most of the attention on Johnson’s religious views has focused on cultural issues such as his opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. But the recent debate over a sweeping aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan has also brought into sharp relief the ways in which the speaker’s Christian faith has shaped his foreign policy agenda. According to The New York Times, Johnson knelt and prayed for guidance after some of his fellow Republicans vowed to dislodge him from his post for putting the measure before the House. The Washington Post reported that evangelical Christians in the United States and Ukraine reached out to Johnson to discuss the persecution of Ukrainian Christians by Russian invaders.
