If anyone was trusting that Mike Johnson would cool his Christian nationalist jets now that he’s risen to Speaker of the House, that faith was misplaced. Johnson has been announced as the keynote speaker of a Dec. 5 gala of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, hosted at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.
The NACL is an overt Christian nationalist organization that seeks to give its “biblical worldview” the binding force of law. The gala website touts NACL’s agenda of “abolishing abortion,” promoting “marriage between one man and one woman,” and “exposing the ungodly effort to undermine our culture by Leftists.”
NACL functions a bit like the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC — creating with “model legislation” that state legislatures can then copy and pass across the nation. NACL members have played a key role in promoting anti-abortion legislation, including so-called “heartbeat” bills, and the infamous “bounty hunter” bill, SB 8, in Texas.
The organization is also fiercely anti-LGBTQ. As NACL founder and former Arkansas state legislator Jason Rapert told Rolling Stone earlier this year: “For far too long we have allowed one political party in our nation to hold up Sodom and Gomorrah as a goal to be achieved rather than a sin to be shunned.”
Announcing that Speaker Johnson would appear at the gala, Rapert wrote on Facebook: “Come join us to support and honor this wonderful Christian servant leader for his leadership in our nation.” The poster for the gala emblazons Johnson’s headshot with NACL’s logo, which features a white cross on a shield of red — symbolizing “the blood of Christ,” Rapert explained in February. This biblical “shield of faith,” he added, is meant to “extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.”
NACL’s acronym is an intentional play on words, invoking the chemical symbol for salt; Christians nationalist frequently invoke the biblical exhortation about being the “salt and the light” — or purifying agents in the sinful world.
The NACL gala will be emceed by Gene Bailey, the host of the Christian nationalist news show Flashpoint, aired on televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s Victory network. It will give a “Lifetime Christian Leadership Award” to Andrew Womack, a Colorado preacher, linked to the New Apostolic Reformation, who is a top proponent of the “Seven Mountains Mandate,” a Christian nationalist blueprint for seizing control of society.
Rapert will also be speaking. He was the lead author of Arkansas’ first-in-the nation “heartbeat” abortion law, that in 2013 sought to limit abortion access to a then-extreme 12 weeks gestation. Rapert also authored the trigger law that repealed abortion rights in Arkansas when the Supreme Court, stacked with Trump justices, overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Rapert founded NACL because “ungodly leaders have led to ungodly results.”
Rapert and Johnson are connected by more than faith. They both fly the Christian nationalist revolutionary “Appeal to Heaven” flag. Rapert was an early adopter of the symbol, getting the flag hoisted over the Capitol in Little Rock in 2015. As Rolling Stone recently reported, Johnson keeps the flag on a pole outside his office. The flag is championed by the Christian nationalist “apostle” Dutch Sheets — a frequent Flashpoint panelist — who has also authored a Christian nationalist decree that reads in part:
“We, the Church, are God’s governing Body on the Earth.”
“We have been given legal power and authority from Heaven.”
“We are … delegated by Him to destroy every attempted advance of the enemy.”
Matthew Taylor, a religion scholar who studies the dark side of Christian nationalism, sounded the alarm on Twitter Tuesday evening. “Please pay attention,” he wrote. “Mike Johnson is associating with some very dangerous Christian leaders.”
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