Are you ready for a wild ride? In a bizarre mix of politics and
religion, House speaker Mike Johnson has compared himself in his journey to the speakership
to Moses parting the Red Sea. Yeah you heard me right. In a
speech to the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, Johnson likened himself to the biblical
figure, leaving many justifiably scratching their heads. Now, can you also believe
that a Jesuit priest actually read flag a warning about Johnson's remarks, Stick around
as we unpack this curious intersection of faith in politics with the truthful story that
is nearly stranger than fiction. This story is from Newsweek, published February eighth,
twenty twenty four. Helen, you want to start us out? Oh
yeah, because you know what's great is when you have governmental power and the
voices in your head tell you you're a prophet. I'm sorry, is this
you here at the house? CAUs at this point I can't fucking tell anymore?
Like I do? I do like that he was called called a megalomaniac.
I kind of like I like that idea that someone is like what that
believes in the same sky. Daddy is like, hey man, this is
a little much. It's a little much. So I guess, like I
don't know what's going on the Republican Party. I keep I keep saying this,
and because it just seems they get like divine guidance and they get these
callings the whole power and act like butt heeads. But they say like,
well, I'm God. You know, my sky Daddy really really likes me
and he wants me to be a butt heead and I'm going to tell you
why. And so you know, from my perspective, I just think he
is making excuses to say that he is the new Moses, which is not
a good person to compare yourself to, by the way, not a good
person. I just find that very very amusing, and I definitely have more
to say about this, but I'm going to shoot it over to Eli so
you can actually have a discussion about this, because I just find it really
funny. So go ahead of Eli. I kind of have to agree with
the megalomania label. I think that's exactly what it is. And unlike James
Martin, I am willing to comment on Mike Johnson as a person. I'm
not convinced he's actually a believer, at least not in the way that he's
talking, not as much. He may have grown up, you know,
believing in God and Jesus, but I don't think he's this much into it.
I think even before the end of the article, when Martin's thoughts were
revealed, it seemed a little bit self righteous, and I think Johnson wanted
to compare himself to Moses from the beginning and just thought it would be like
received better or look less like megalomania if he started with, oh, well,
I'm not Moses, like oh golly g it turns out I am.
I'm exactly like Moses. Look at how important I am to Christianity. And
he just wants to be lauded as like this hero of Christian nationalism and being
the top dog in the Republican lighthouse is not an ineffective way to achieve that
status. But all that aside, I kind of take a like, unrelated
to the article. I take a huge issue with the idea of a national
association of Christian lawmakers. What a terrifying thing to exist. I think it's
it's the people that are intentionally want to make Christianity into law in a country
that, contrary to the popular far right belief or far right opinion, was
founded primarily and almost exclusively for the purpose of not having a state. Religion
separatists, Separatist Protestants like in Holland, fleeing abuse from the and persecution from
the Catholic Church of England, Like does anybody remember that from history class anymore?
And the number of people that seem not to or to have no idea
how Europeans landed on this continent is staggering, especially among politicians. I can't
believe they wouldn't be fully aware of that. But at the same time,
I'm not convinced that you know their memory is selective. They're likely well aware
of it, and I think they're just powerful enough to think that they can
do whatever they want. But this is somehow different from Sharia law. But
I think I can probably learn a lot from you, cross examiner, given
your background. So I want to hear what you have to say. Well,
yeah, I think you're right on regarding the megalomania and the excuses that
Helen was talking about. I think all of it adds up to the classic
problem with religion. I can make any claim I want as to God talking
to me that nobody else can hear, and I can use that to justify
anything. I can, you know, sell you holywater. I can do
spiritual healing. I can be elected to president even or vice president Mike pens
et cetera, or speaker. Regarding the story, the story that reporter chose
to focus on was Catholic priest tells our jesuit slash Catholic priest tells says that
Mike Johnson should basically chill. I'm not surprised that a Catholic priests would tell
tell Johnson to chill on the God spoke to me stuff. The Catholic Church
has never been big on supporting the common man's claims that God literally speaks to
people. They like to keep all that communication in house, so to speak.
That's why they made it illegal to print the Bible in anything but Latin
for centuries, so that nobody could read it. Only priests could tell people
what was actually in the Bible. They were the vendor of that information.
They were God's speakers on earth. So this is sort of a flavor of
that to me. The most outrageous part, however, for me, was
the article was one sided, and I don't mean as between the priest and
Mike Johnson. I mean that the author assumes that those are the only two
relevant points of view. Mike Johnson an evangelical religious fanatic, and on the
other hand, James Martin, a Catholic religious moderate. Both of them agree
that Jesus existed, that he was supernatural and divine, that there is a
heaven, that following Jesus is the only way to heaven. That abortion should
be illegal, that gay shouldn't marry. All of this stuff they agree on.
The only point they disagree on is whether or not Mike Johnson was contacted
directly by God. That's it. The author didn't seek any other opinions,
like does God even exist? Are these people talking about imaginary friends? And
so this is a perfect example of poor journalism in the US when it comes
to religion. This whole article is literally just a recap of the story about
Mike Johnson, which was told months ago, and the only new info is
a quote from James Martin's tweet. He literally just tweeted A good spiritual director
will tell you that insights you feel are coming from God, which are usually
subtle, those must carefully be carefully tested and weighed. One red flag for
spiritual directors is and then God said, this not everything that pops up in
your head during prairies from God. That was his whole tweet. And it
was ten paragraphs of this story to talk about that one tweet, and the
author utterly failed to question research or delve into any claims about God. In
the end, those claims are kind of childish. It felt like two kids
fighting in the schoolyard about which imaginary friend was talking to whom? Uh you
know I was as I was reading this story. I also had just finished
reading Doctor Seuss to my son, and that's why probably I imagined a couple
of kids fighting. But it did make me write a little Seuss style question
for the reporter, So I'll finish on that. Uh, where are the
atheists, Agnostics, the Hindus, Where are the Muslims, the Buddhists,
the Sikhs, and the Jews. You'll find not a one in this reporter's
report. He did not see fit to seek a secular retort. This outcome
repeats, it never abates, because religious reporting sucks in the States. So
that's how I view this story. That's a wonderful, very well done.
I appreciate that doctor who. That's a different I was sinking who's in my
brain? So I appreciate the doctor Seu's poem. I totally did get Kelly.
I know you got pains because I read your notes. Yeah, I
got things. First off, I wanted to do the actual quote that Johnson
said, and he was talking about the race for the speakership. Now at
the time, I assume the Lord is going to choose the Moses, and
oh, thank you, Lord, You're going to allow me to be the
Aron to that Moses. Ultimately, thirteen people ran for the post, and
the Lord kept telling me to wait, wait, wait. So I waited,
I waited, and when it came toward the end, the Lord said,
now step forward me. I'm supposed to be Aaron. And the Lord
said step forward now. Seriously, being speaker is an amazing thing. I'll
give you that. I'll fully agree to that, even but I wouldn't equate
it to a supernatural miracle or Johnson to a biblical hero for becoming the speaker.
And the only thing that I can see that they might both have in
common is I consider Moses to be a fictional character, and I'm seriously not
sure that Mike Johnson is a real person with that name. The way he
looks, I'm pretty convinced he's actually just someone's AI version of a revival tent
minister Mike School of AI right, right, right, totally, you know.
And what I find really interesting though about the whole thing is that it
was actually a real person, like you said, even though it was somebody
in the same religion, it was actually a person of face, a leader
of faith that was reprimanding the profit of the House Johnson for his language,
right, and it's it's actually a real priest that blew me away. And
I didn't expect to see that it's not a member of his particular brand of
magic belief. And that's why I think it should be pointed out that,
yeah, at least he's getting some blowback from his own side of the of
the religious aisle. I guess, Helen, Well, you bring up a
good point. But like the thing is that I was like, you know,
there's always a debate, are like Havoc's real Christians? You know,
And that's a like I find very silly because it's like you you all believe
that a dead guy rose from the dead and did that to save you from
your sins because you like to masturbate. Like that's like, that's that's that's
where your brain is, man, And I'm like cool. And what I
find more distressing about this, and like Grandma pointed out, is that nobody's
asking what do secular people say, or people that don't even follow the same
religion, Like if you're a Jewish or Muslim or Pagan or Hindu living in
this country, nobody's asking them. Nobody's going like, hey, you're a
represented you are part of the US population. What do you think about this?
Right? You have the speaker of the house saying Jesus spoke to me
God, you know, the Christian God spoke to me. And that's the
person that's running a huge chunk of the government. Right. He gets to
decide what bills come forward. He's he controls the purse strings. And and
if you're not a Christian, and maybe not even if you're not evangelical Christian,
you immediately are like, oh, this guy doesn't represent me and is
actively rooting against me. And that's that's what I got out when I read
this article as an atheist and a squeer person. I was like, this
person doesn't represent me because I don't believe in you know, magical sky daddies
and that you know, people you know talk to me in my brain.
If that does happen, please tell me get the therapy. By the way,
we're just going to put just that out there right now. And also,
Kelly, I know you're going to get to this, but like this
is a problem with the Christian nationalism in this happening in this country because because
of this and like what you were saying, Graham, nobody's pushing back against
this. Somebody's saying like, hey man, you know, like you can
have your belief but you can't say that you are divinely inspired by God to
be a speaker of the house like that that's not a thing man, Like
you got elective to this physician, Like like God didn't be like cool,
No, he didn't. God didn't tell anybody else in the constituents to make
that guy. I think he honestly believes that though, I mean that's the
good believes that. The problem is the reporter isn't going okay, So you're
saying God said this stuff to you. Was it an audible sound like you
were alone in a room, Like they're not really diving into that. They're
not doing what we would do if we were like hosting the Atheist Experience or
something of like really trying to understand what the claim is. And and they
let politicians get away with that God told me this. God told me that.
And they're like, well, okay, sounds good. Not like wait
a second, are you literally hearing voices as the like why isn't the headline
Speaker of the House is hearing voices? That should be the headline, because
because we usually save somebody hearing voices, it's like that's a farm, that's
a symptom of psychosis. You need to see a professional. But for some
reason, you know, if you're holding any sort of political position of power,
you get a pass. And it's like, but you're there's still a
person. Just because they you know, rose in the rings of government doesn't
mean that they might not have mental health issues or he's you know, a
met little narcissists, which is also issue. You can make it positive in
the headline, Speaker of the House actually hears the voice of God, right
right, This is a breakthrough, And gentlemen, Eli we we're kind of
going back and forth and this a lot, but I know, like,
because we have a lot, we're very opinionated on the show. But I
would love to hear more of your thoughts on this whole people hearing voices in
their heads claiming like I got divining magic powers. I was with you.
I I have a little bit. I've studied some psychology, and I don't
remember there being a you know, typical neurological event that you know, ends
up with hearing disembodied voices from sources that aren't physically there. So that's not
a thing that I typically regard as a normal thing. You all seem to
be convinced that he you know, I disagreed earlier. I said that I
felt like he probably doesn't believe, you know, isn't as religious as he's
claiming that he is. But you all seem to think the opposite. And
I'm not sure still, but I definitely love hearing your interpretations of it.
Well, my take on that question because I sort of you made me think
when I'm like, okay, wait a second. You know, he is
kind of extreme, He is sort of a caricature and all those sorts of
things. My take on it is. I want him to believe me when
I say I don't believe in a god. Like you know, I'm going
to take I want people to take me at my claims unless they have evidence
that I'm deceiving them, right, So I'm going to give him the benefit
of the doubt. He may not believe. And that's sort of the the
I forget what it's called. It's kind of a flavor of pose law.
Right. You know, any sort of extremism is indistinguishable at some point from
satire. You can't tell like is this real or is this satire? Or
is it for nefarious purposes like I'm lying just to sell product or to get
elected or whatever. But my modus operandi is usually, Okay, you're going
to make a claim, I'm going to take you at your face value,
and I'm going to take it literally. You said you hear voices. Let's
talk about that. That should be the headline, and that's what the press
should do. You literally heard this, like, and I haven't heard anybody.
And maybe he did it. He went, I'm guessing he goes.
I think I've seen him go on friendly Christian podcasts where they'll just hm and
nod and say how pressure it is. I'm sure they didn't like cross examine
him, but somebody should in the press. That's what we want the press
to do. And if he literally audibly heard a voice, we should be
concerned about that. If he didn't, then he should clarify that and say,
well, no, I just had a feeling, and then I'm attributing
that to the god I was raised with. That's what happened. That's a
fair point. Yeah, I like what. I like what you're thinking there.
And I just want to to say, like, this is something we
always talking about on the show that whenever somebody makes these claims, it's always
like where does the sincerity and the satire end? And again it's the same
thing over again, Like I'm like, do you really buy this or which
is concerning? Or you're a terrible liar and you're just trying to show some
ship and I at this point, like I can't tell the difference anymore.
I'm so confused. Ahead I was going to say I was sincere when I
thought Mike Mike uh was ai. So I was definitely sincere in that opinion.
Can I just give mad props to Kelly for calling him the profit of
the House slipped everybody, you get, you get those clever points this week.
But somebody, somebody mentioned it, and I don't remember who, but
about different different I think it was you cross Examiner, about the different brands
of Christianity that are going on here, and I think a lot of these
people these and let's face it, Johnson's a Christian nationalist. We all know
that he wants to He wants to turn our nation into a Christian nation.
And I think a lot of the people who are of his mindset think that
everybody within the government has the same mindset. But they're not thinking that there
are differences and opinions of what that Christian mindset should be. And five of
the Supreme Court justices are Catholics, a six was a Catholic, was raised
Catholic. He's a messive Methodist now and are they going to agree with all
the religious views of these Christian nationalists. I don't think they are. And
that might create another clash within the party, within the within this whole conservative
movement, at least I hope it does when they start to realize that,
you know, the justices might not be on their side with all of their
christ their far right Christian values, So I think you need to keep an
eye on I agree with you there the Catholic Church, Catholic faith has a
great tradition of legal practice. There's a heritage there, and there's that that
does explain why there are a lot of Catholics traditionally on the Supreme Court,
especially in more modern times. And I do agree that the interplay between the
Catholic priest and Mike Johnson was sort of a very core interesting concept. I
did a little research on James Martin. He has a best selling book called
Jesus a Pilgrimage. He's one of these, you know, pop preachers,
right that comes out and maybe the church supports him in doing this because he
became popular. But he writes, you know, kind of self helpy books,
or let me explain Jesus from a lay person's type of perspective. His
big one is called Jesus a Pilgrimage. And I read the introduction after reading
this story, and I found this this sort of core In the introduction,
he said, quote, my starting point is a classic theological statement colon Jesus
Christ is fully human and fully divine. This is one of the first things
that Christians learned about their faith. So that's his starting point. That's not
surprising it Like every other preacher we've seen these days, he just takes it
as a given that God exists and that it's Jesus. And then he just
has a whole book apparently about just so stories about how cool Jesus is,
and that's his book. And so if he can, he himself can yeah.
Yeah, So if he could just start by saying, I'm going to
take it as given that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine, then
why can't Mike Johnson just say, well, the Bible has lots of people
being spoken to by God. Why are you reprimanding me for hearing God?
Like he subtly James Martin is playing favorites about how he interprets scripture. I
can I can just say the Bible says Jesus is God. So I believe
that the Bible. Bible also depicts God speaking to a lot of people,
but I don't believe that he spoke to Mike Johnson. That seems hypocritical.
Also, I do want to point out in the church, like any claims
that God is talking to anybody is taking with a grain of salt, like
there there is an investigation again, I'm giving, like you know, the
cath Church, like I have a credit like but at least but there's a
little bit of skepticism there, like and I think it was good. Then
you called him out, like, hey, man, I don't think you're
really talking. I don't think you're a prophet. I don't think you're in
the next Moses. You know, that's a that's a problem. But I
but I do think the point we're talking about, like we should be asking,
you know, man, are you really talking to God? Because if
you are, we have to verify it or be you're lying or see that
you you need a therapist. It's one of those three things. So it's
true, and we have some questions. We want you to ask God and
we can test and see if God, Hey God, what's the cure for
cancer? Like why doesn't Mike Johnson get that information from God? Are you
so upsetsive? Fortune is God? Like I have to now if he's got
a direct line to God, he should figure out how to solve the Middle
East crisis, right, Okay, Like, please give us some final lots
because we're very opinioning on this show, and I would love to hear some
final thous before you wrap up. Well, you know, across the Zamurai
I said earlier, I like kind of what you said there. I'll go
ahead and rescind my statement from before. I'll believe to interrupt you. You
actually persuaded me a little bit because when we started talking about his goal of
Christian nationalism, that's where I agree with you. I think he's probably a
believer. I'll take him in face value. I'm not sure he really wants
the country to become a true Christian nation. So you have won me over
on that point. Like a lot of these people, I think like Trump,
and those people are like, yeah, I'm a Christian nationalists, I
want to be a Christian and they're like, holy shit, if that ever
really happened, we screwed. So I don't want that, but it keeps
me in power. So yeah, yeah, and that's kind of where I
was going with it. I reminded me of the Trump, uh you know
talking about I think he called like he said like two Corinthians or something when
you was talking about I know that he thought that that had anything to do
with how familiar he was with the Bible, and then it just kind of
reminded me of that a little bit, and I that's why I was like,
no, I'm not convinced. I don't. I don't quite buy it
because just like it's almost to a point where you can be so extreme that
you can't tell if it's satire or not. Because I'm like, what,
does somebody actually believe that? I think my I think Mike Johnson does.
Unfortunately. I mean there's a few of them out there, and I really
think he is one of the ones that really really does. But you're right,
I think there's other people like Trump that are just using it to as
a way to get elected. I really believe that too as well. So
I think Ted Cruz is another one that really believes it with his annointing of
the oils every time, you know, having his minister, you know,
Ted Creuz is you know, a whole diff in bad. We could do
several different talking voice about him.