WASHINGTON (ChurchMilitant.com) – The newly elected speaker of the House is hitting all the right notes for patriots starving for pro-American rhetoric.
In his inaugural speech Oct. 25, Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., underscored that belief in God has formed the basis of the nation since its founding.
To make his point, he referred to the national motto “In God We Trust” adorning the rostrum from which he was speaking. He explained the history of the four-word maxim and how it represents a poke in the eye to communism.
Quoting from a guidebook tourists receive upon their visit to the Capitol, he said that in 1962, “[t]his motto was placed here as a rebuke of the Cold War-era philosophy of the Soviet Union.” The new speaker added, “That philosophy was Marxism and communism, which begins with the premise that there is no God.”
The distinction between a philosophy that assumes there is no God and one that assumes there is a God is “critical,” Johnson asserted.
Johnson went on to quote G.K. Chesterton, the British writer and Catholic apologist, from his famous travelogue, “What I Saw in America,” written in 1922.
“America is the only nation in the world that is founded on a creed,” the new speaker cited Chesterton as saying. “That creed is set forth with dogmatic and even theological lucidity in the Declaration of Independence.”
Expounding on Chesterton’s observation, Johnson added, “What is our creed?” For the answer he referred to the second paragraph of what he called “our birth certificate” — the Declaration of Independence.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” he quoted, adding some of his own words for emphasis, “not born equal, created equal.”
He continued reciting the famous section of the document saying: “and they are endowed by their Creator with the same unalienable Rights — Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
“That is the creed that has animated our nation since its founding and has made us the great nation that we are,” he emphasized, rousing those in attendance.
The speech drew applause from both sides of the aisle before Johnson took the oath of office, vowing “to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Johnson’s election on Wednesday ended three weeks of uncertainty since former speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s historic ousting. It established his position as third in line for the presidency.
