Reading the Human Heart
Comprehension Problems
“‘When our people are losing their faith in government, when they're losing sight of the principles that made us the greatest nation in the history of the world, we have to be mindful of that,’ Johnson said in a speech after the vote” (NPR, October 25, 2023).
Imagine this quote appeared on a multiple-choice test of reading comprehension. Pick the best option: a) the greatest nation on earth is a biblical democracy, b) the right to bear arms has made us the greatest nation in history, c) our people are unmindful of the horrible conditions our country is experiencing, or d) ‘our’ and ‘they’ in the first two clauses of the quote do not refer to the same antecedents as does ‘we’ in the main clause. Pick your answer (or write a different option) and enter it in the comment bubble.
The vote, of course, was the culmination of the post-McCarthy Water-Gaetz that led to Mike Johnson’s resurrection to House Speaker. As a constitutional lawyer, Johnson might know what he means in these lines from his speech, but he speaks in deictic references, over here, over there. Naked faith in government is absurd. When has anyone had naked faith in government to lose? Respect, indubitably. Did he learn nothing from Pelosi? We have our democracy—if we can keep it. By having faith?
And which principles, O Mike, have made us the greatest nation in history? Equity? Rule of law? Free and fair elections? Freedom of religion?
Words from the heart come easy for him, easy-in-the-mouth words like faith, principles, mindfulness. As an evangelical Christian, he has professed absolute faith not only in his truth, but in the truth from the mouth of God to his ears. In Johnson’s version of mindfulness there is but one truth: In God We Trust.
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Johnson’s world is very like the world conjured in Piers Plowman from the late 1300s. Written by William Langland, this poem constitutes all that is known of the poet, but critics have for centuries discerned a unique genius in its linguistic machinery. At its heart the poem is about Everyman and the problem of the Christian heart defeating the temptations humans face to make spiritual progress from the world of the flesh to the spirit world. Life is a loop of the Eve in Eden pageant featuring the snake as Lucifer.
Two shooters using killing machines went on rampages in Maine this year. These events were unusual in bucolic Maine. Mike Johnson, formerly a shadow in a shadow of a member of the House, had to step to the mic as Speaker and say something about the second Maine massacre.
The first mass killing: On April 19, 2023, Joseph Eaton, 34, who was released April 14 from a Maine Correctional Center having been sentenced for aggravated assault, admitted to shooting and killing four people, his parents included, and then turning his killing machine on motorists on a busy interstate highway.
The day before, Eaton had posted a video on Facebook and, in evident agony, made the following observation, according to NPR (April 19, 2023 linked above).
"What good does it do to hate somebody?" he said, choking back tears on the video. "You know, it destroys you."
An intriguing snippet from the perspective of Piers Plowman, Everyman. One day you’re wondering how hate can be good, the next day you’re murdering your parents? Joseph Eaton, according to his words, must have believed that he was protecting himself with his assault rifle from being destroyed by hatred: He must have thought “I’m going to stop the hating and start shooting…”
The second mass killing: On October 25, 2023, Robert Card, an expert marksman with military training in weaponry and in survival in the wild, killed 18 people in a small town in Maine at the Just-In-Time Recreation bowling alley and Schemengees Bar and Grille Restaurant. It would take a better poet than I to imagine the scene in Card’s heart where his spirit fights with Lucifer and loses.
Steven King, a guy who can tell the difference between a scary story and human madness, made the following observation just after Card’s crime against humanity:
“‘The shootings occurred less than 50 miles from where I live,’ wrote King, an outspoken advocate against gun violence. ‘I went to high school in Lisbon. It’s the rapid-fire killing machines, people. This is madness in the name of freedom,’ he continued. ‘Stop electing apologists for murder.’”
Madness in the name of freedom…an apt phrase to summarize Mike Johnson’s ideology as near as I can tell. As Americans it is our birthright to decide to go mad. We call it freedom.
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Apologists for murder like Speaker Johnson are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Per usual, in the aftermath of a mass shooting like Robert Card, speaking of faith and principles, some politicians call for stiffened laws and blah blah blah knowing all the while that others call for stronger medicine, prayer and hymns.
The new Speaker, Mike Johnson, an evangelical, blames the shooter for the killings, not the gun, the shooter where Lucifer battles the Son of God for control of the human heart in a private hell. Johnson told Fox News this:
“At the end of the day, the problem is the human heart. It’s not guns. It’s not the weapons. At the end of the day, we have to protect the right of the citizens to protect themselves, and that’s the Second Amendment. And that’s why our party stands so strongly for that. … This is not the time to be talking about legislation.”
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Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates wasted no time tarring and feathering the Speaker. Bates called Johnson “offensive” and reaffirmed Joe Biden’s belief that “there is nothing wrong with America’s heart.” Biden might add a coda—especially not when the darkest impulses are muted by reasonable laws, Biden might add. Witness:
“Gun crime is uniquely high in the United States because congressional Republicans have spent decades choosing the gun industry’s lobbyists over the lives of innocent Americans,” Bates added. “Gun violence is now the main reason that American children’s hearts stop beating. Not cancer, not car accidents — gun violence.”
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Mike Johnson has an unconventional perspective on the separation of church and state. Apparently, there is a longstanding argument made on the far right holding that the separation was never intended to protect the federal government from religious intrusion; instead, the idea was to protect the church from intrusion by the federal government. Johnson is unequivocal about the issue with a long record of public commentary of the ilk of the following:
“If anybody tries to convince you that your biblical beliefs or your religious viewpoint needs to be separated from public affairs, you should politely remind them to review their history and you should not back down.”
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Speaker Johnson has the unique authority to move legislation outlawing rapid-fire killing machines, a step toward stopping the violence and the death. Such a law would be against his religious belief that individuals ought to have the right to protect themselves from evil doers who have freely chosen to invite Lucifer into their hearts. By the way, we also have the right, née, the obligation as citizens in a “biblical democracy” to conquer our own inner demons as part of God’s plan.
The Speaker of the House seems to believe gun control laws leave innocent God-fearing individuals vulnerable to mass shooters. If government can help shooters get right with Jesus in their heart, he seems to think, there would be no violence. Perhaps get rid of public school… turn them into churches… In the meantime, the government ought not infringe on a fundamental freedom to bear arms, but empower Christian politicians to solve the problem of gun violence by placing the blame where it belongs—on Lucifer. According to Mike Johnson, America is not a democratic republic, but an eye-for-an-eye democracy.
