Meet the evangelical activist who’s had a 'profound influence' on Speaker Mike Johnson

Mike Hixenbaugh is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News, based in Houston.

Two years before going from a relatively unknown congressman to speaker of the House, Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana spoke at a national gathering of Christian lawmakers in North Texas and shared his deep admiration for the man behind the conference: the evangelical activist and self-styled historian David Barton.

According to Barton, the separation of church and state is a myth, invented by progressives based on a misreading of Thomas Jefferson’s famous 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists. And any laws or court rulings limiting the influence of religion in schools and government — especially the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1962 and 1963 decisions banning mandatory public school prayer and Bible readings — are an affront to America’s true founding.

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