Johnson attributes prayer to Thomas Jefferson, but there’s no proof he said it
"According to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, there’s no evidence that the third president of the United States ever recited a prayer for the nation, as Mike Johnson suggested.
Shortly before Mike Johnson was sworn in as House speaker on Friday, he stood in front of the incoming members of Congress and offered what he said was “a prayer for the nation” that was said every day Thomas Jefferson was in the White House and “and every day thereafter until his death.”
Johnson attributed that detail to a program distributed at a bipartisan interfaith church service where he spoke earlier that day.
Johnson told the lawmakers, it is “quite familiar to historians and probably many of us.”
“Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth,” Johnson said, reading from a piece of paper.
Historians do know the quote — because it has been falsely attributed to Jefferson for years. There is no proof Jefferson ever said it, according to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which has a page on its website dedicated to correcting this notion, a Voice of America reporter noted on X.
“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,” the foundation writes.
Furthermore, the organization said reciting a prayer like this is not something Jefferson would have ever done.
“Ultimately, it seems unlikely that Jefferson would have composed or delivered a public prayer of this sort,” the organization said. “He considered religion a private matter, and when asked to recommend a national day of fasting and prayer, wrote, ‘I consider the government of the US. as interdicted by the constitution from intermedling with religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.’”
Emails seeking comment sent to a spokesperson for Johnson and the group that organized the interfaith prayer service were not returned.
On Saturday, Rep. Jared Huffman (D-California) wrote on X that the House speaker’s misrepresentation of a Founding Father was part of a wider problem.
“To be clear, I object to his false attribution of the prayer to Jefferson — part of the endless Christian nationalist campaign to remake Jefferson into a devout Christian when he was actually an enlightenment era freethinker who thought religion should remain private and out of government,” the congressman said in reply to a reporter who cited his first post."
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