Upon his re-election as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, R-La., read a prayer he said was written by Thomas Jefferson. Problem is, those who have studied the former president’s life and words say there is no evidence Jefferson either wrote or spoke the prayer Johnson attributed to him.
Johnson’s use of what Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation call a “spurious quotation” was reported by Brian Kaylor, editor of the Missouri Word&Way and affirmed by Warren Throckmorton, an academic who specializes in calling out such historical misappropriations.
Brian Kaylor
According to Kaylor: “Johnson has a history of using fake quotes to advance his belief that the U.S. should be a ‘Christian nation.’”
Johnson is allied with other evangelicals who have a history of misquoting and putting words in the mouth of Jefferson, who was America’s third president. The problem is so rampant that Throckmorton and Michael Coulter have written a book debunking the lies, Getting Jefferson Right: Fact-Checking Claims About Thomas Jefferson.
Chief among those misusing Jefferson’s legacy is David Barton, an avowed Christian nationalist who is closely aligned with Johnson and the far-right evangelical world.
The prayer quoted by Johnson last week has been published online by the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation as “Thomas Jefferson’s Prayer for the Nation” and dated 1801. Elsewhere it is known as the “National Prayer for Peace.”
Back in 2020, the Monticello Foundation posted an online notice about the misattribution of this prayer:
We have no evidence that this prayer was written or delivered by Thomas Jefferson. It appears in the 1928 United States Book of Common Prayer and was first suggested for inclusion in a report published in 1919.
Interestingly, although we can find no evidence that this prayer has a presidential source, it was used by a subsequent president in a public speech. Several months after his 1930 Thanksgiving Day Address as Governor of New York, it was pointed out that Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s speech bore a striking resemblance to the very same prayer discussed above.
Ultimately, it seems unlikely that Jefferson would have composed or delivered a public prayer of this sort. He considered religion a private matter, and when asked to recommend a national day of fasting and prayer, replied, “I consider the government of the U.S. as interdicted by the constitution from intermeddling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.”
Warren Throckmorton
Throckmorton explains: “It has been quoted without a source by Christian nationalists since at least the 1940s. It has been traced to the United States Book of Common Prayer in 1928 but not to Jefferson. The title of the prayer in that book is ‘For Our Country.’ This is another Christian nationalist Jefferson lie.”
Speaker Johnson told the chamber he had read the same prayer earlier that day at an interfaith prayer service at a Catholic church.
“This isn’t the first time Johnson used a quote considered spurious by historians,” Kaylor added. “As first reported by A Public Witness after his initial election as speaker in 2023, Johnson argued in a sermon at a Southern Baptist church that the U.S. is ‘a Christian nation.’ However, as he claimed the founders intended the U.S. to have a Christian government, his ‘evidence’ included a quote falsely attributed to President John Quincy Adams and another falsely attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville. Johnson has admitted to being influenced by pseudo-historian David Barton, who also has a history of using fake quotes about Jefferson and other U.S. founders.”
Kaylor concluded: “With the speaker’s gavel remaining in his hand, Johnson is set to continue pushing Christian nationalism. Even if it means using fake quotes and falsely baptizing the president who advocated for the ‘wall of separation’ between church and state and who famously cut the miracles of Jesus out of the New Testament. Johnson’s erroneous, bad faith arguments for Christian nationalism must be rejected.”
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Did Thomas Jefferson say the president should attend church as an example? | Opinion by Warren Throckmorton
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