What Did You Say?

By Michael Gryboski, Mainline Church Editor | THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2023

Read more at https://www.christianpost.com/news/4-highlights-from-mike-johnsons-first-speech-as-house-speaker.html/

Republican Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives following three weeks of infighting among GOP members. He delivered his first speech as speaker Wednesday, stressing that God raises up those in authority. 

Johnson, 51, was elected in a 220-209 vote held Wednesday afternoon, in which all present Democrats voted for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and all Republicans present voted for Johnson.

The following features highlights of Johnson’s speech in the House chamber after his election. 

A devout Baptist, Johnson said that he does not “believe there are any coincidences in a matter like this,” saying that “the Bible is very clear that God is the One that raises up those in authority.”

“He raised up each of you, all of us,” Johnson said to his Republican and Democrat colleagues. “I believe that God has ordained and allowed each one of us to be brought here for this specific moment and this time.”

“This is my belief. I believe that each one of us has a huge responsibility today to use the gifts that God has given us to serve the extraordinary people of this great country and they deserve it.”

Johnson said God called Congress to help “ensure that our Republic remains standing as the great beacon of light and hope and freedom in a world that desperately needs it.”

Johnson spoke about the national motto “In God We Trust” and how the words were placed in the House chamber as a conscious rejection of communism during the Cold War.

He stressed the value of the Declaration of Independence and its statement that “all men are created equal” by God, quoting Christian writer and apologist G.K. Chesterton, who once said that “America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed.”

Johnson said that while he believes that right now is “a very dangerous time” and “the world is in turmoil,” he declared that “a strong America is good for the entire world.”

“We are the beacon of freedom, and we must preserve this grand experiment in self-governance,” he said. “We’re only 247 years into this grand experiment; we don’t know how long it will last.”

“We’re in a time of extraordinary crisis right now, and the world needs us to be strong; they need us to remember our creed and our admonition.”

Johnson touched on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, vowing that “the first bill that I’m going to bring to this floor in just a little while will be in support of our dear friend, Israel.”

“We’re going to show not only Israel, but the entire world that the barbarism of Hamas that we have all seen play out in our television screens is wretched and wrong,” he said. “We are going to stand for the good in that conflict.”

He also spoke of the dangers presented by the wave of illegal immigration and the ongoing fentanyl crisis, declaring that “we must come together and address the broken border.”

Johnson acknowledged that Americans “live in a time of bitter partisanship” and “it has been on display here today” in the House of Representatives.  

“When our people are losing their faith in government, when they are losing sight of the principles that made us the greatest nation in the history of the world, I think we got to be mindful of that,” Johnson said.

“We’re going to fight; we’re going to fight vigorously over our core principles because they are at odds a lot of times now in this modern era. We have to sacrifice, sometimes, our preferences because that’s what’s necessary in a legislative body.”

Johnson noted that while “we will defend our core principles to the end,” noting that he considered the “core principles of American conservatism” to actually be “the core principles of our nation.”

“I boil them down to individual freedom, limited government, the rule of law, peace through strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets, and human dignity,” Johnson listed.

“Those are the foundations that made us the extraordinary nation that we are, and you and I today are the stewards of those principles.”

During his speech, Johnson spoke about his father, who served as a firefighter in his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, and how he had suffered a severe injury in 1984 that left him with a permanent disability.  

“After the explosion on that fateful day, he nearly died, and it was a long road back. It changed all of our life trajectories,” said Johnson. “My dad, he lived with pain all the rest of his life.”

Johnson said his father died from cancer three days before he was elected to Congress in 2016, noting that “he wanted to be there at my election night so badly.”

“This was a big deal to him,” the new speaker explained, who added that in 2017, while he was serving as speaker pro-tempore, he felt that “somehow” his late father “knew” what he was doing.

“I just knew in that moment that my father would be proud of me, and I felt that he was. And I think all of our parents are proud of what we’re called to do here.”