A great evangelical divorce? – Speaker Mike Johnson’s breakup with Marjorie Taylor Greene could be bad news for Trump

When House Speaker Mike Johnson pushed through aid to Ukraine this week, it did more than give a green light to support the Ukrainians. He has in recent weeks changed from the hard core of the opposition to supporting Ukraine to championing his cause. His actions were obviously political and personal, but they also signal a real conflict within American evangelicalism, one that could have implications for the upcoming presidential election.

In early 2024, a report on Russia’s persecution of Ukrainian Christians appeared in some evangelical publications, most notably in a February 6 story in Christianity today. The report, ‘Faith under attack: Navigating religious freedom amid the war in Ukraine’ was published in November 2023 by Mission Eurasia (an evangelical mission organization founded when the Soviet Union collapsed) detailing church closures; destruction of church buildings; kidnappings; imprisonment and torture of religious leaders; and the murder of priests and preachers.

Religion doesn’t get much attention in the mainstream press. Since the war began, scattered stories about this have appeared in a few more liberal religious publications, such as Baptist News Worldwide And Christian CenturybYet the evangelical press has largely avoided stories about Ukraine, preferring something of a sort both sides approach to the issues.

In October 2023, Christianity today reported on how evangelicals supported Ukraine when the war started. But those views changed when media figures like Tucker Carlson began spreading Russian propaganda at conservative Christian political rallies, accusing Ukraine and Zelensky of persecuting the Russian Orthodox Church. If C.T writes:

“The Zelensky government has raided monasteries, arrested priests – essentially banned a Christian denomination,” Carlson claimed, referring to the Ukrainian branch of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Many evangelicals, who a love affair with Vladimir Putin about the Trump years, were willing to listen or, in some cases, quickly embrace Carlson’s message. (I’ve written about evangelicals and Putin here, hereAnd here.) While 77% of evangelicals supported Ukraine when Russia invaded, that enthusiasm eroded over the next two years. In October 2022, the World Evangelical Alliance will indeed publish an article about it global evangelical support for Ukraine notably omitted any mention of support from American evangelicals. In late 2023, a poll showed evangelical support for aid to Ukraine at 28%. A few U.S. mission boards with a significant European presence—such as Mission Eurasia and Greater Europe Mission (essentially the OG of U.S. missionary work in Europe)—remained active in their support of issues related to Ukraine, but their call for evangelical attention to issues of persecution seemed largely ignored.

Overall, American evangelical public opinion became clouded. It seems that over the past two years the more evangelicals committed to Christian nationalism as a political movement, they began to increasingly withdraw from Ukraine and re-embrace Vladimir Putin. As a result, evangelical opposition to Ukraine and support for Russia largely took over the issue and elevated pro-Putin, anti-Ukrainian evangelical members of Congress, such as Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, to superstar status.

However, in November 2023, pro-Ukrainian groups discovered that the key was American assistance in their war waving evangelicals. Shifting evangelicals would shift overall public opinion and could change the votes of members of Congress who represent districts with strong evangelical representation. From late last year until now, there has been a steady, sustained effort to do just that. And a lot of that pressure was on Mike Johnson.

The number of stories about Russia’s persecution of evangelicals appearing in the religious press increased. A good example of this can be found in The Baptist Press—their reporting on Ukraine increased in political content, urgency and frequency, from the fall of 2023 through this spring.

And this trend slowly made its way into the mainstream, including this piece that aired on PBS on April 10, 2024 News hour:

The effort to change evangelical opinion appears to be coming from several directions Razom, a human rights organizationpartly supported by the progressive Open Society Foundation, to the top secret familyan influential and controversial evangelical group that supported Ukraine as a potential ‘Bible belt’ stronghold against European secularism.

These strange bedfellows have indeed pushed the public narrative forward in recent weeks – and increasing public awareness of Russia’s persecution in Ukraine has certainly helped Mike Johnson to change your mind. The House of Representatives will finally meet on April 21 have passed Ukraine relief bill.

Was Ukraine a test case?

Until this vote, a Venn diagram of MAGA, the Freedom Caucus, and evangelical Republicans in Congress was essentially a circle. But in the days before the vote, it became clear that there was division on the issue. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most outspoken and extreme evangelicals in Congress, appeared on Steve Bannon’s show and emphasized that Russia was a champion of religious freedom and Ukraine its enemy:

Let’s talk about what this really is, Steve: This is a war on Christianity. The Ukrainian government attacks Christians; the Ukrainian government executes priests. Russia doesn’t do that; they do not attack Christianity. In fact, they seem to be protecting it.

Greene has attacked Mike Johnson’s faith, saying on X (formerly Twitter) that he “can’t follow Christ” over his passage of a recent budget bill. She believes Johnson, the most openly evangelical Christian nationalist to ever occupy the Speaker’s seat is not Christian enough – and has given itself over to a “woke” agenda.

Sarah Posner, longtime observer of the Christian far right, noted the Battle of faith between Johnson and Greene in her MSNBC column. This is indeed starting to look like a political divorce, with Johnson breaking up with Greene, Congress’s stand-in for Trump’s Russia policy.

The result? There are two evangelical factions in the Republican group – Greene’s pro-Trump, pro-Putin, populist MAGA and Steve Bannon group; and Johnson’s (also) pro-Trump, Russia-skeptical, establishment evangelical crowd Washington and Tony Perkins.

I know it’s hard for many Americans to find daylight between these two groups, but there are real tensions here – sometimes in policy and always in style. But the rift around Ukraine came to light this week. And it wasn’t pretty. When evangelicals debate politics, it’s not just about policy. Usually it comes down to accusations about how good a Christian’s opponent is – and excommunicating them from evangelicalism.

This week showed that the old establishment evangelicals still have some left and may not have completely succumbed to the new MAGA rebels. Maybe they’re testing the political waters — knowing that Donald Trump in New York is too preoccupied with Stormy Daniels’ hush-money lawsuit to notice that they just kicked him in his anti-Ukrainian policies.

Be that as it may, the once conniving Johnson, who now holds the gavel in his hand, has seemingly transformed himself from a pro-insurrection, MAGA, Moscow Sort of a Marjorie guy into a polished, genteel, insider evangelical with ties to the elite family.

This week it was about Ukraine. But that is not the only crack in the evangelical coalition. There is increasing tension over abortion among the establishments who want a national 15-week abortion ban, with exceptions for maternal health (and perhaps rape and incest) and abortion abolitionists who not only want to ban all abortion and contraception, but want to criminalize both.

And then there is Donald Trump. No one knows what this trial in New York will bring in the coming weeks. The MAGA evangelicals will stand behind their man, but evangelical establishment types fear salacious testimonies about Trump’s adultery with a Playboy model and a porn actress. They may have thrown in their lot behind Trump, but they also know they are playing a dangerous game. The more unpredictable and unsavory he becomes, the less likely they are to retain power.

And they love power. Indeed, most mainstream evangelicals believe in the project of transforming America into a Christian nation in their theological image. But they know this will take a long time. The key to their ultimate success is Hide in plain sight—like the Family— and continued as ordinary Washington insiders, amassing institutional power and slowly changing the nation from the center. Incremental change, not instantaneous. When it comes to a Christian America, mainstream evangelicals prefer evolution over revolution. Stealth is their thing.

Was Ukraine a test case for the establishment to see if they could still wield enough power in the House of Representatives to undermine the evangelical MAGA populists? To bring Johnson into the progressive camp and abandon his former associations?

Don’t know. It is certainly possible. If I were Marjorie Taylor Greene, I would be concerned; there are signs that the evangelical establishment wants to throw her under the political bus. (Maybe she should hire a food taster?) In an election year, they’re eager to dismiss the extremes and try to present themselves as moderates again. But if the evangelical coalition is purging itself, there’s no telling what will happen in November. That could be bad news for Donald Trump.

But he’s probably too busy with Stormy to notice that Mike Johnson appears to be breaking up with him.

This essay first appeared on The Cottage and is republished with the author’s generous permission.