Since I wrote about the role white evangelical Christians played in influencing Speaker Johnson to support U.S. aid to Ukraine, I found a piece by Jonathan Larsen that expands on that theme. Putting all of the information together indicates the following timeline:
January 1, 2024 - Ukrainian evangelicals met with Johnson and presented him with a letter urging him to support U.S. aid to Ukraine (emphasis mine).
In the letter, the leaders of the Ukrainian Churches call on the Speaker of the House of Representatives M. Johnson to "continue supporting the struggle of the Ukrainian people for liberty, independence, and freedom of religion with your wisdom and all other possible means, including the weapons, that our defenders at the forefront of freedom and democracy so lack , in particular, those weapons for which the political and military leadership of Ukraine is asking."
February 4, 2004 - Speaker Johnson said that the bipartisan Senate bill authorizing aid to Ukraine was "dead on arrival" in the House.
February 5, 2024 - Ukrainians evangelicals addressed a group of Christian nonprofits in Plano, TX.
Speaking through an interpreter, Atonyuk described Russia’s assault on Ukraine as an “evil project” to destroy freedom, including religious liberty.
“We are looking for ideas, projects and partnerships with our fellow Christians in the United States, because together we can stop this evil project,” he said. “Our Lord Jesus Christ will prevail. We are praying for this, and we are looking for partners who will stand with us.”
March 28, 2024 - Johnson spoke with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.
I spoke with @SpeakerJohnson and thanked him personally, both parties, the American people, and President Biden for their critical support of Ukraine since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 28, 2024
I briefed Speaker Johnson on the battlefield situation, specifically the…
April 2, 2024 - Zelensky met with Ukrainian religious leaders (emphasis mine).
"I would like to ask you to communicate with each other not only here, within our country, but also abroad. This dialogue is very important for us now. After all, the church has a great influence on society, on state leaders. And so this is a very important signal for us regarding the support of our partners," [Zelenskyy] emphasized.
April 5, 2024 - Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy's top aid, wrote an article for The Hill titled "Ukraine's Evangelicals Need U.S. Support."
[S]ince Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and initial occupation of Eastern Ukraine, Putin stands as an adversary of Christianity, freedom of religion, and the church itself. Churches have been shuttered, ministers detained and tortured, and religious freedom suppressed. The full-scale invasion of 2022 intensified and brought this assault on Protestantism to newly-seized territories...
It is time for American and Ukrainian evangelicals to come together once again to ensure religious tolerance in Ukraine.
April 8, 2024 - Evangelical leaders in the U.S. (including Richard Land) wrote Johnson urging him to support aid to Ukraine.
As you consider efforts to support Ukraine, we humbly ask that you consider the plight of Christians. The Russian government’s decision to invade Ukraine and to target Baptists and other evangelical Christians in Ukraine has been a tragic hallmark of the war.
April 12, 2004 - Johnson went to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Trump.
“I stand with the speaker,” Trump said at an evening press conference at his gilded private club.
Trump said he thinks Johnson, of Louisiana, is “doing a very good job – he’s doing about as good as you’re going to do.”
April 14, 2024 - Appearing on Fox News, Johnson said, "We’re going to try again this week, and the details of that package are being put together right now. We’re looking at the options and all these supplemental issues.” (emphasis mine)
April 17, 2024 - A second letter was sent to Johnson signed by several U.S. pastors.
We remind Congress that religious freedom is a basic human right that must be protected everywhere. We pray Congress has the courage to stand in solidarity with people of faith. Ukrainian Christians deserve the freedom to worship in peace and embrace their faith without fear.
We call on Congress to provide Ukraine with the financial and military support required to defend herself, stop the bloodshed, and secure freedom of religion within her borders.
April 20, 2024 - Johnson brought a bill for U.S. aid to Ukraine up for a vote in the House. It passed by a vote of 311-112.
It's clear that both Ukrainian and U.S. evangelicals are aware of the fact that using terms like "religious freedom/liberty" will trigger someone like Johnson in a way that details of the battle situation would not.
What stands out to me is the fact that Zelenskyy might have played a critical role in all of this. A few days after he spoke with Johnson - and probably saw that an argument based on Russia's military actions wasn't having any effect - Zelenskyy held a meeting with Ukrainian religious leaders asking them to communicate with their colleagues abroad because "the church has great influence on...state leaders." That was followed a few days later by an article in The Hill (a moderately right-leading publication) suggesting that Ukrainian evangelicals needed U.S. support.
If my assumption is correct, Zelenskyy is an even more impressive leader than I thought.
Reading Nancy's column today, I'm more and more impressed with Zelenskyy's ability to identify powers that can help his cause and to use them to his (and Ukraine's) advantage. What is more important to Mike Johnson? His allegiance to his tribe of Christian Evangelicals. Not being in any way an 'Evangelical', I must wonder how Mr. Johnson interprets Biblical admonitions to welcome the stranger(s), regardless of their tribal identification. However, I'm once again grateful that Mr. Zelenskyy was able to discover the keys to Johnson's mind and therefore get him to push for passage of this bill and others. Now, let me remind myself: religion has no place in government. (You may interpret that however you choose.)
ReplyDelete