With the bombshell that Joe Biden is exiting the race, the Republican National Convention already seems like a lifetime ago. But Sunday’s news that the president isn’t going to run for a second term doesn’t change the fact that the Republican Party was at the epicenter of what Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) called “a big moment for our country.”
“Many people have commented that they think it was the best convention that they’ve ever seen or been involved in,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, who also served as a delegate from Louisiana. “I really do believe,” Johnson emphasized, “… that unity was the central theme of the week.”
Perkins, who was in Milwaukee for a week and a half, agreed that the shock of what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania “changed a lot.” “The atmosphere changed,” he said. “The focus seemed to change.” The speaker, who had several conversations with Trump in the hours and days after the shooting, wanted people to know that “he is in a different place” mentally and emotionally. Others who are in his close orbit, he pointed out, have noticed a change too. “It’s not surprising that when one gets shot in the face, it would make them reevaluate things,” Johnson said. “And he has.”
If there was a word that he would use to describe the former president, it’s “contemplative,” the speaker noted on Saturday’s edition of “This Week on the Hill.” “He’s been very thoughtful about the weight of history, the providential effect of his having dodged that bullet. It does seem to be that God spared his life … and so he’s weighing all of that. He understands the moment that we’re in as a nation, the trying time that we’re in, the challenges that are presented,” Johnson explained. “But I think he really does feel a sense of destiny about all this. And so it’s affecting — not just the countenance on his face, which many people have commented on during the convention — but also the way he’s speaking and acting.”
Look, he continued, “Nothing happens by accident. … And you know what? I’ve been very heartened by that, because of the gravity of the situation, because of the dire straits that our nation is in, we desperately want and need the next president to be contemplative,” the speaker underscored. “We want the man who assumes that office to be thinking in this way and weighing decisions carefully and speaking in the tones that he is. [I]t’s been a really remarkable week of events, almost surreal in many ways. But I think in the end, this is a very encouraging and good thing for the country.”
The shocking turn of events on July 13 may have prompted other leaders to think more seriously about eternity, Johnson acknowledged. “I think people are speaking about that openly. … [W]e’re in uncharted territory, uncharted waters, as a nation in so many ways. We’ve talked about it often, but when something like this occurs, when the former president and soon-to-be next president comes literally within one centimeter of death — one slightly different turn of the head, and we’re having a very different conversation this morning.” Frankly, the speaker said, “I think that gets people’s attention. I think it makes them pause and stop and think about life and about eternity.”
Johnson, who nearly lost both of his boys last November in a drowning accident near Mar-a-Lago, knows all too well that life is fragile. And he’s reminded friends, “… Scripture is clear that there is a time appointed to every man to die. And that is all … in the hands of Providence. It makes one stop and think. And certainly elected officials and politicians and people who work in this arena, they’re not apt to stop and think in that way. But this has brought it about, and I think that’s a positive thing in the end.”
Across the country, in California, the message of life’s fragility is sounding loud and clear in churches like Pastor Jack Hibbs’s Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. He points out that a week and a half before the former president was shot, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) had called for a month of prayer and fasting — never knowing the chaos that Americans would find themselves in after just a few short days. Hibbs heard about the declaration and decided to adopt it in his community.
“I thought it was a great thing to do,” he told Perkins on the same Saturday episode. “I thought … that it’s rooted and grounded in our nation’s fabric for leaders to do such things. And so immediately when I saw that [in the news], it happened to be right before a Sunday service. I walked out there, and I said, ‘Hey, everybody, look at the headlines.’ I put them up on the screen, and I said, ‘I’m asking everybody in this church to become Tennesseans for the month of July.’ And then I looked into the camera and said, ‘Let’s all across America join Governor Bill Lee’s challenge. Let’s all become Tennesseans.”
That led to a huge wave of pastors all across the U.S. contacting Hibbs to say, “We’re doing the same thing with you guys.’” Pastor Jack sent a letter of gratitude to the governor’s office for his tremendous example. “That’s leadership. … God will honor it.” It occurred to him, as it did to everyone who joined in, “Who’s to say but that bullet that missed President Trump could be a result of everybody praying during the month of July? I mean, our God does not work in circumstances that are coincidences. He works in his sovereignty.”
Like so many Christians who’ve been concerned about the state of our nation, Hibbs can’t help but wonder, “If this is not a turning point, will there be one? Because at this time, does God need to send us any further indications that we are a nation in peril without him. … How much further does God have to go to give us warnings that we, His people, are to repent and to seek his face? And I pray,” he said earnestly. “I’m seeking God [with this one plea], ‘Please, Lord, may we turn.’”
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.
