Welcome to the nonprofits. Our third story this week.
Takes us into the halls of Congress where Huse speaker Mike Johnson recently quoted Thomas Jefferson during his National Prayer?
Or did he? Chris Mallard? Can he help clarify?
Thank you, Scott. According to Johnson, Thomas Jefferson supposedly recited the National Prayer of Peace every day of his presidency, even right up until his death. But let's take a moment here, that's not quite the truth. The Jefferson Foundation and historians have been clear that there is no historical evidence to support this so called prayer by Jefferson, and they've labeled it as frankly bogus. And Johnson isn't the first person to trot out this nonsense. It's been making
the rounds in certain religious circles for years. Now. Here's where it really gets interesting. Thomas Jefferson wasn't exactly the pious Christian many want him to be. He leaned heavily towards deism, belief system that acknowledges the Creator but rejects
organize religion and divine intervention in human affairs. Jefferson wasn't skeptical or He was skeptical of many core Christian doctrines, like the divinity of Jesus or miracles, and he even went so far as to create his own version of the Bible, removing all the supernatural elements and focusing solely on Jesus's teachings. So, while Jefferson may have respected the moral teachings of Christianity, he firmly believed that religion should
be a personal matter. In fact, he was so passionate about this that he wrote the Virginia's Statute for Religious Freedom in seventeen seventy six, which was adopted in seventeen eighty six. That statute was essentially the first legal attempt in our young nation's history to separate church from state, a principle he championed throughout his career. When I hear Johnson's claim, I feel it it's like yet another attempt to rewrite history, to turn someone who is openly critical
of institutionalized religion into some kind of Christian mascot. Jefferson's actual beliefs tell a very different story, one that underscores his commitment to personal freedom and the separation of religion and government. This was from an article from Newsbreak by Kelly Dallas on January seventh, twenty twenty four.
All right, well, Chris, you were talking about how Speaker Johnson was misquoting Jefferson and was being called out for it.
But is this author burying the lead here?
I think so, don't you think so? Anybody else to show of hands? I mean, they're like, the real thing here is Johnson's up there, the third, I believe, the third highest political power in the land, and he's up there spouting misinformation and doing prayers. The prayer itself is really what should be taken as the biggest defense, and that's kind of one of the things I noticed. I'm like, well, wait a second, this author really seems to be like, oh my goodness, my pearls about the fact that he's
misquoting Johnson. He's upset because he's misquoting or Jefferson, right, not that he's praying leading a national prayer from our country in the name of our country.
So it's how he's praying, right, Yeah.
Yeah, wait a second, Well, yeah, it's it's one of those How can you be so oblivious to the obvious fact. I was surprised as I kept waiting reading the article. I was going on, right, man, here he goes, he's going to say it, He's going to say it. But in the very beginning they just kind of skipped over it. You know, it's kind of weird that they're doing a prayer at all. But right, okay, what evs can you believe they misquoted?
Like okay, how dare they how when when when they're giving a prayer and you know, government function, how dare they miss you know, use the wrong person or say the wrong thing.
And it would have been even more It would have been appropriate had they leaned into why misquoting Jefferson was important or or mister tribute this to Jefferson. But they didn't. They didn't. They just kind of up Jefferson and they kind of barely went, you know, he's kind of against this sort of thing. They didn't really talk about the statute, the Virginia Statute of separation, you know what I mean. They didn't talk about any of those things. So you're
left wondering, well, why did you write this article at all? Right, But yeah, it does seem like they really stepped over the biggest point to just elucidate this tiny little thing. Again, they could have, especially had they been really detailed about what Jefferson was about, that would have made more sense as to why they're doing this. But really, I think the focus, the main light should have been shined on the fact that the guy's leading a national prayer.
Right, Yeah, exactly, exactly, Eli, I want to jump over to you. I'm gonna I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb if I say that I don't think you support public prayers led by government officials. And you know, I think we're on the same boat on this panel, But why is that a particular issue as especially when we're talking about government officials?
So kind of exactly, like Chris said at the very beginning of this artlist, is the problem, at least according to some scholars, wasn't that he prayed in the US Capitol? And and I second guessed myself, I'm like, isn't that like exactly the problem?
Right?
And it's because, as you said, Chris, he is second in line, so the third like that, there's the president, vice president, and then the Speaker of the House is Mike Johnson. He's a third person in line for the presidency, and he's basically declaring, here the prayer reads in part, or it goes.
In part, I should.
Say, in time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness and the day, Yeah, Jesus Christ our lord. A men. Right, So he's he's he's declaring Jesus Christ as our collective lord, at least for like Congress, at least for the House of Representatives, in like in the office on official time, like like the official Like that is a thing you can't do. Like I'm nogal expert here, but like that's that sounds a lot to me, like establishing, you know.
A preferred religious doctrine.
So the fact that this is happening at all absolutely blows my mind. And and that he's doing it. That's when I think the problem is that he is so high in that chain and that he's basically declaring, like, yep, this is the guy he's ours for all of us.
Well, I guess we could latch onto that the author's point now as briefly as he made it, as weekly as he made it, and for Johnson in that position to use that prayer and then try to rewrite John Jefferson, who is actually a proponent of the separation of church and state. So it's like a double whammy here. Not only did he do the prayer, but he also tried to make it sound like the person who put originally put that wedge between church and state didn't really do that.
And every day was walking around saying this prayer.
Right, it's almost like he's injury and adding insult to injury. Right, you're using the prayer, but then you are misquoting it to make somebody, you know, seem like they were against what they you know, what was one of the most important philosophies in their in their life.
Yeah, Christian conservative politician would mislead people in this fashion is on brand for them, to be honest.
Yeah, that was in my notes too, that like the exactly that same thing. It's just that Jefferson absolutely would not have agreed with the use of a prayer in this context. Even if he did use that prayer privately, and like let's say it worked true that privately every day he would wake up or go before you go to bed, he would pray this particularly that great, he
wouldn't have done it in public office for sure. He wouldn't have like encouraged others to do it or like force others to because he didn't like that that that wasn't how he viewed the relationship and the interplay between religion and government, and that I think that makes it, like you guys have said, even more.
So, Eli, then do you think that I mean, you know, we're.
All surprised that the article focused too much on the content of the prayer rather than the fact that there was a prayer in the first place. So do you think that might have been an intentional move on the part of the author? Is he trying to downplay the prayer itself and kind of make a bigger deal out of the It's kind of like a like a an illusionist doing a distraction, right, Look at this hand over here, and then you won't notice what you know, me, you know,
stacking the deck with my left hand or whatever. Does this mean that there's a shift in public interest? Do you think that prayer is being official, prayer is being normalized?
Absolutely?
Yeah.
And I think the author, Kelsey Dallas, kind of shows their hand by saying at the beating, like I mentioned already, the problem wasn't that he prayed in the US capital. They don't see that as a problem. It's one of those things that it's like, well, yeah, you can pray in the capital, only it's a pretty entry. You know, there's a Christian Christian nation front that on Christian principles,
so of course you're going to pray. And it's sort of coming to this point where I think conservative voters, at least for the most part, have said before this week a couple episodes.
Now, no, no group.
Is a monolith, but there is a vast section of conservative voter that have interwoven their their religious faith and their political views so tightly that they they don't there is no distinguishing between the two, all of their political stances, everything that they vote on, everything that they go to the polls for has it's some like the their reason for doing so is religious and when they see things
like this they don't see it as problematic. They think they think, not only would a good leader, you know, use their their publicly elected office to declare one deity as the lord of all.
People in the building, but they should do that.
That's what there's a there's a a vast chunk of voters who think that that's the way things off be done.
And that's for the problem.
So we were familiar with the idea of a single issue voter, right, somebody who's going to vote based off a single issue. But in a way, what we're looking at here is single issue livers. You know, people with single issue lives. They want to direct everything towards the praise of this of this deity, and and I don't know, that just seems a little misguided to me.
I don't know, if Chris, what do you think about that?
I agree, it's a really it feels like Mike Johnson is trying to smooth over the fact right that he's praying officially in the country's name. He's trying to smooth that over by referencing Thomas Jefferson, who was a proponent of the separation of church and state, and trying to make it sound like he was on or Jefferson essentially did the same thing. It's clear miss misinterpretation of what Jefferson done. I believe it's quite intentional, and I think
it's he wanted to say the prayer. He wanted to get up there and do it for our nation, and this this is his way of kind of mitigating the backwash. He just kind of screwed up our backlash. He screwed up in his well, he didn't. He did exactly what
he wanted to do. And then, of course the author of the article elucidated that the fact that he pointed out the little, tiny, little the little piece of information that oh yeah, this isn't really the way Johnson would have done it, and then moved on talked about something else, you know.
But yeah, right, so you're you're thinking it was an intentional yahs. Interesting, Elian. I want to get your opinion on that. I want to couch it slightly differently, though, I want us to look at the context of the
New Testament. Okay, I want you got to take it in context, right, But we often hear about the four Gospels that they're all different, and one of the explanations is that the and we hear this from Bible scholars, is that the four different authors were kind of telling a similar story, but they were adding things to the story to support their their particular perspectives or the particular point that they're trying to make.
And so in a.
Way we can see examples of that as like you might call it a literary style. I think that Bible believers would would probably you know, rail against that. I mean, I think that they would take offense if we call that just merely a literary style.
But do you think that what's that the emphasis?
Right? Yeah?
Right?
But yeah, so they're they're they're focusing the emphasis depending on their personal political agendas here. So let's compare that to what with what Johnson is doing here. Chris was saying that he thought that Johnson was intentionally misrepresenting what Jefferson says, but we could also argue that maybe he was just telling the story with a slight enhancement or little tweaks for for for for for to support his perspective is do you think that's maybe happening or do
you think he's just flat out lying? I mean, either way we're gonna there's problems. It's problematic. But do you do you agree that it was intentional or do you think it's or do you think he's just trying to be literary and flowery with his language?
I think so he definitely As far as whether he knows it's true or not, who can you know it's anybody's Yes, Apparently other people.
Have gotten that wrong before too.
I had never heard of the prayer or anything, but like other people have attributed to him before as well, so he could have have gotten it from some.
Source and not realized it was wrong.
But if it were to be, you know, even if it were just like, oh, I'm just tweaking it to kind of, you know, enhance my platform, Like that's still lying, right, it's still But what I think more what I think more likely is the case is that by using somebody like Thomas Jefferson, and he even in his speech he frames him as you know, a reminders a reminder of what our third president and the primary author of the
Declaration of Independence thought was so important. So he made sure to emphasize like, you know, independence, you know, founding father sort of because of how because of the tendency that conservative voters have to lean on nostalgia and that idea of independence and freedom and liberty and yeah yah, and not realizing that like, we don't have it the way that they say that they think that we do, but that they he leans into that a little bit harder,
just to sort of amplify his message a little bit more, because that that same group of voters are there's a are there there's a lot of overlap between that group of voters and the group of voters that make all of their choices based on their religion. So he's just sort of increasing the slice of pie that he's connecting with by tossing that in there.
That's right, interesting, Chris. Do you agree with what Eli was saying? And I want to add a little spin to this. Do you think that he is and I know this is puer speculation. We're trying to peer into the mind of the Speaker of the House here, but do you think the lie is the goal?
Or do you think he views.
The lie as necessary means to an end.
Maybe he feels justified. He maybe he feels it's wrong, but he feels justified in saying that we've heard that before.
Well, you know, one of the things that it could be, and to give, if we will, the benefit of the doubt. It could be that Mike Johnson dips into where it could be just a reflection of where he gets his information. He said, down the computer one day, He's like, I'm going to deliver a national prayer, looked up at his little Google. Google is all you know how Google or
whatever tones its search to you. So he searched for national prayer and he found the misinformation that you know, and because it's probably on his kind of stuff, right, that's this is exactly the calls coming from within the house thing, right. Remember, So I'm just saying that it's
possible that he didn't do it on purpose. He actually believed that this was something that Thomas Jefferson did because when he did his and I'm going to use the word forgive me, forgive me research, he fell into his own levels of misinformation, you know, right, yeah, and didn't go beyond any of that.
Really, you know, your your description there just brought this amazing image to mine. I pictured Johnson like the night before the speech, sitting down and thinking, shoot, I have to give a national prayer, and he Google's National prayer and then this comes up.
Yeah.
Yeah, people are lazy. Yes, yes, they're definitely lazy. Excellent, excellent.
One of my favorite things about this article is that it's and we don't run across this all that often, but when when we do find this, I like to I like to dive into this just headfirst.
They left commenting open on the.
Article, okay, and so I like to skim through then and see what people actual human beings. I'm assuming. I suppose maybe that's not a safe bet these days. But so this is what some of the people say. And I wrote down three particular comments that I thought interesting, and so I'll read them to you, and then in between each one, I'll just get some quick feedback from
from each of you what you think. This first one was from a user by the name of Barbara Thompson, and Barbara said, quote, if you can't remember, like Harris, it may be time to read the Pledge of Alliance, One Nation under God. We are not forced to believe anything, but I choose to believe in God, and I lean on my faith.
I'm so grateful to.
Know I'm saved and I'm and saved through Jesus Christ. And so Barbara was saying that, you know the Pledge of Allegiance or she said Pledge of Alliance obviously miss labeling that, but it says one Nation under God right there, Eli, What do.
You what do you think about this particular commenter?
Well, I like that, somebody replied, because I'm looking at it right now to you. Somebody replied to me and said, what is the Pledge of Alliance?
Which I think is hilarious.
But yeah, Barbara, under gone wasn't added until nineteen fifty four. We know this, right, So just I mean read read the Pledge of Alliance?
When when should we read the Pledge of Alliance?
Right?
Yeah, it over because she starts with the comment by criticizing Kamala.
Harris's right, Barbara, if.
You can't remember, yeah, pretty much. Yeah, Chris, what are your thoughts on that?
That is some Christian projection like at his fondest is it not? You know, one of the things whenever you see it's they do that often. They'll come in, like my comments, I'll place the video and they'll come in and they'll call me stupid, or they'll attack me personally with an ad hominem and then misrepresent something or misquote something. It's it's quite hilarious. I'm glad you found that on that.
You know, it seems like I maybe I just noticed this more often, but it seems like whenever somebody is ranting and criticizing the intelligence of somebody else, it seems to me that they always have a spelling error or a grammar error, or in this case, they have totally the wrong word.
I mean, let's let's cut them a little bit of slack here.
It might have been something like an autocorrect or something like that, but come on, double check it before you hit that return key. All right, So let's go on to this next comment. This is from a user by the name of c. Name is s I Conacento, Espanol, and so SE's comment was, the Bible states its hypocrisy to pray in public. Prayer is a private matter between one's own self and their God.
Chris, what are your thoughts with that?
I would really appreciate if that. I'll just keep it to themselves.
Right, Ye'll do what Jesus says, not what Jesus does.
Right is that?
Well, you know, you see that exactly, That's exactly right. Oftentimes they will they will claim to be people of peace while swinging a weapon, you know, they they they talk about being people of love while oppressing other people. I'm such a glorious I raised my voice up to Christ. And then they get home and they mistreat their trans child because they don't like it, or they don't talk, or they ostracize their their gay child. So there's a
lot of contradiction. It's projection, lies contradiction, it's it seems to be like a signature move of Christianity. I never really saw it when I was young, When I was when, you know, it just now that I'm older and I'm engaging more with them, you know, from my I see it all the time. I'm like, oh my god, I can't believe you're really trying to push that off on us. It's a bunch of young right.
Well, do you think maybe we're just now we're starting to push back. I mean, maybe you think they've been doing it all along. It's just nobody really cared.
Oh well, some people I think did care. It's just our voices are getting stronger, you know. And sometimes they come in my chat and they're like, oh, hey, you big mean atheists. I'm like, wait to say, wait, wait, wait wait, we're the ones we've been we're being oppressed. We're the ones you're imposing your theocracy on us, and you come and tell us not to struggle. We should take this line down. We should be oh yes, sir, yes, sir,
we should what use words? I mean, no, No, you're trying to impose your theocracy on my wife and my daughter and my children in schools, and yet you don't want me to be angry about that, oh angry as so yeah, there's and of course coming from these people. You know, they come at us about their arguments about morality.
How can we have morals without God? And then you look at the things that God, the God itself does, and you got two thousand years of the followers living by these morals, of examples of watching them, the horrific things they do and the have they have a nerve to say that we can't have morals without God. It's just there's a lot coming set coming at us, you know.
From I totally agree Eli. I want to read.
I want to read one last comment, and then I want a quick word from Eli, and then we'll have to wrap things up here.
This is what was my favorite comment that I read there.
It was from a user by the name of Gladys Vogel, and Gladys said, people, have you not fear of God?
A divided nation will not stand.
Stop your squabbles and show respect and humility for others, ironically, even if you don't agree with their views. Prayer emoji, heart emoji, Someday we are all going to stand before and then she switches to all caps someday we're going to stand before the real judge and give an accounts.
Eli. Does that put the fear of God in your hearts?
Yeah, it does a little bit, especially how the exclamation works at the end in the capital letters, because she didn't stop, she didn't go back to lowercase, she ended it out with capital. So but you see, I see
stuff like this all the time. And like even if you go on the videos where it's like, hey, like here's the reasons why I like the Bibles, I don't trust the Bible, or like why I don't believe in that, and then they'll just come in and say things like this like no, I don't have fear of God because I don't believe in that.
Right, yeah, fear of what? What? No?
Yeah, I do, hear it. But all those exclamation points and yeah, you know.
What, until until right this moment, it was a matter of volume.
That's why I that's why it wasn't clicking in my head. It's all about the volume, right, Okay, all right, well, excellent, great discussion. Uh guys, and I think we'll have to wrap up this, uh this episode here and but it