At a congressional hearing on the Department of Homeland Security’s Minnesota deportation efforts, the Rev. Mariah Tollgaard, a United Methodist minister in St. Paul, read a statement criticizing the president’s immigration policies and mentioned Matthew 25. In response, GOP Rep. Michael Cloud, a former communications director at an evangelical megachurch, brandished a Bible and argued that “Christ didn’t say” to “lobby your government,” that taxes are coercive and Christian “charity” is ultimately voluntary.  

WASHINGTON (RNS) — When Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia walked into Speaker Mike Johnson’s office last month, the two men already held starkly different political views. By the time the meeting ended 30 minutes later, it was clear they also sit on different ends of the Christian spectrum.

Warnock, a Democrat and pastor of a prominent Black church, had raised questions in an interview with The New York Times a few days prior about whether the speaker’s Republican politics reflected his professed faith. The senator described himself as a “Matthew 25 Christian,” referring to a biblical passage that features Jesus telling his followers a parable in which “all the nations” are judged by how they care for the “least of these” — described as the hungry, the stranger and the imprisoned, among others. How, Warnock had told the Times, do you “say a long prayer, hold hands with your fellow legislators and then cut a trillion dollars out of Medicaid?”

In response, Johnson, a Southern Baptist from Louisiana, called for the confab and offered a diametrically opposing interpretation of  Matthew 25.

“He told me that Matthew 25 was about individuals, and not nations,” Warnock told Religion News Service, referring to Johnson. “The text actually says nations.”

Warnock, a member of the Progressive National Baptist Convention who holds a Ph.D. in systematic theology and recently published a faith-themed book, added: “It’s a very narrow individualistic faith, and I think it has consequences for the kind of policy you end up with.” 

The Johnson-Warnock meeting, which the Democrat has otherwise described as “respectful,” added to the brewing debate over Matthew 25 that has been building over the last year, pitting mainline pastors, Black protestants and the pope against evangelical politicians put on the defensive amid outspoken religious criticisms of President Donald Trump’s policies.

Matthew 25 itself is hardly unheard of among Democrats. Former Vice President Al Gore, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have all publicly cited it in the past. But the passage received a moment of global recognition in November, when Pope Leo invoked Matthew 25 after he was asked by reporters about the president’s immigration policies.

The Bible, Leo quipped, “says very clearly: at the end of the world, we’re going to be asked, ‘how did you receive the foreigner?’”

When a reporter for Migrant Insider asked Johnson in February if he had any response to Leo, Johnson insisted Matthew 25 was directed at individuals, “not to the civil authorities,” and later published a lengthy post on X expanding on his reasoning.

The post proved divisive. It was celebrated by evangelical conservatives such as author Allie Beth Stuckey and Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, while more than 40 Catholic Democrats in the House signed a letter that amounted to a theological rebuke of Johnson. The Rev. William Barber II, a prominent anti-poverty activist and Protestant, called for Johnson to participate in a public theological debate about immigration. 

How Johnson, who has not attended seminary or pursued degrees in theology or biblical studies, arrived at his interpretation is not clear. Representatives for the speaker declined multiple requests for an interview on the topic, and his precise take on Matthew 25 does not appear to be universally held within the SBC, Johnson’s denomination. The SBC’s congregation-focused structure generally precludes uniformly conscripting specific Bible interpretations in a formalized way, and a spokesperson for the denomination deferred to the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, the group’s political arm. Asked about the passage, an ERLC spokesperson told RNS the group does not “have a position” on the interpretation of Matthew 25.

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