Pay Dirt is a weekly foray into the pigpen of political funding. Subscribe here to get it in your inbox every Thursday.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has centered his professional, political, and personal life squarely on his Christian faith. Nothing, by his own admission , is more important.
That’s precisely why his relationship with his own church is critical to understanding not just his worldview, but his identity and his character.
As it turns out, Johnson’s “dear friend” and former pastor—ultra-conservative Christian fundamentalist Brad Jurkovich—is facing allegations of financial mismanagement from members of his own congregation. And a review of Jurkovich’s pastoral history shows this isn’t the first time his flock has turned on him. A previous congregation in Texas also forced him out in the 2000s.
In 2022, congregants filed two lawsuits leveling a number of serious allegations against Jurkovich and First Bossier Baptist Church, in Johnson’s hometown of Bossier City, Louisiana. The plaintiffs claim Jurkovich and other leaders violated the church’s bylaws when he was hired in 2014, alleging that church leaders improperly rewrote the 80-year-old rules in a “power grab” that transformed the congregation into a Jurkovich-led “dictatorship,” giving him essentially absolute control over financial and strategic decisions.