Tennessee state Rep. Justin Jones used the Bible to call out Speaker Mike Johnson for using his faith to worship guns.
Tennessee State Rep. Jones said in MSNBC’s Inside with Jen Psaki:
First of all, Jen, I want to let Speaker Johnson know that in my faith tradition, when you put objects above people, we call that idolatry. And when you put the lives of people under money and campaign contributions, we call that idolatry. And so let’s not use faith and false thoughts and prayers to gloss over this issue.
Um, let’s, let’s, let’s, let’s pray with our feet and hands and signing legislation. And so what I want the speaker, the new speaker of the house, because they finally have a speaker to know is that. Our community, like Nashville, this, this mass shooting at Covenant was not the first mass shooting in Nashville.
We had a mass shooting at the Waffle House here, and now we had another mass shooting at Covenant Elementary School, and our community continues to feel this trauma and this grief, and it is insulting to grieving communities to try and use religiosity to to make their pain, um, dismiss it and to try and and rush away into the other.
The next mass shooting comes. I hope that Speaker Johnson knows that this is an issue that’s supported by Republicans,
independents and Democrats. I’ve traveled and rule in urban counties and people are calling for common sense gun laws in suburban the wealthiest county in Tennessee, Williamson County.
Republicans are calling for common sense gun laws. And so I hope that Speaker Johnson does not wait until a mass shooting hits his community act. But I hope that he acts according to not an issue of left or right, but recognizes that this issue of gun violence is a moral issue of right and wrong. And history will watch where he stands in this time.
History will judge him. His Children would judge him and future generations will judge him because we’re sick and tired of living in this world of preventable mass death because of an extreme minority that have hijacked our democracy. This issue of gun violence is a crisis is an emergency in our democracy.
We have a lot of small A minority to take control of our policies when the vast majority of Americans across political um, ideologies are calling for common sense gun laws to save lives, save lives. That’s my message to Speaker Johnson, save lives and do something.
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The Bible used against a supposed Republican Christian who thought that it is his mission to protect the gun manufacturing industry over the innocent lives that are lost each day in the United States to gun violence was refreshing.
Republicans, like Johnson, will never be swayed by rational arguments about the need to do something about the nation’s mass shooting epidemic. Worship of the gun has become a part of right-wing Christianity.
The best way to counter people who are warping the Bible to cater to a deadly special interest is for real people of faith to reject the right’s false worship of guns.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
