Inside the Shady Finances Behind Mike Johnson’s Longtime Pastor

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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.

Jurkovich, the plaintiffs allege, engaged in self-dealing and impermissibly steered church funds to another right-wing faith-based organization with a clear ideological and tacitly political agenda—the Conservative Baptist Network—where Jurkovich is a top official. When members raised their concerns to the church, the lawsuit says, Jurkovich and other leaders obstructed attempts at transparency.

One suit—seeking to invalidate the church’s by-laws as rewritten in 2014 when Jurkovich came aboard—was dismissed in June 2022, with the court citing an expired statute of limitations. The financial lawsuit, however, is ongoing.

Last week, the Louisiana Supreme Court issued a writ dismissing the church itself as a defendant, while directing the plaintiffs to instead target individual leaders. In a concurring opinion, two justices emphasized the seriousness and apparent validity of many of the plaintiffs’ claims, ruling that discovery should proceed and the issue “should be adjudicated.”

“One may argue that the acts alleged, rather than the acts of the Church, were acts in furtherance of an unauthorized and perhaps fraudulent coup d’état,” the opinion read, adding, “One would hope that a Higher loyalty would come into play.”

Who’s the boss?

Johnson was a prominent member of First Bossier for years, leaving under cloudy circumstances around the time the lawsuit was filed. Until that time, Johnson exerted a powerful influence within the community. He also tied the church—and Jurkovich specifically—to his political life.

In September 2018, Johnson, then a freshman representative embarking on his first re-election campaign, invited Jurkovich to the U.S. Capitol, where the pastor delivered a benediction on the House floor as guest chaplain. (A month later, Johnson posted a report featuring Jurkovich to his official congressional website, sharing another article a year later.)

On the House floor, Johnson introduced Jurkovich as his “dear friend and pastor.”

“Pastor Brad,” as Johnson called him, “is a gifted speaker and a leader with a true servant’s heart,” the introduction said. Johnson lauded Jurkovich for his commitment to “share the message of salvation with everyone he meets,” calling it “an honor to have him here today to ask God’s blessings over us, our work, and our nation at this historic time.”

Two years later—and three days before the 2020 election—Jurkovich interviewed Johnson alongside Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) for a politically charged church event.

But by May 2022, the Johnson family had changed its affiliation to Cypress Baptist—without explanation.

A person familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast that the wider community didn’t have much clarity on the move either, and that it was generally believed the family chose Cypress because it was just closer to their home.

Still, Jurkovich endorsed Johnson after his elevation to House Speaker in October, saying he had “the privilege to be Speaker Johnson’s pastor for several years,” and was “grateful for his faith and fortitude.” He also lauded Johnson last month, telling the Los Angeles Times that while Johnson’s congressional schedule prevented him from attending every Sunday, he was a frequent speaker at church events.

“People need to know he is who he is,” Jurkovich told the paper. “His life has been his faith, and you’re not going to get a lot of curveballs with that. That’s who he’s been.”

Johnson has honored First Bossier and the role it has played in his life for decades.

A 2019 report in the Shreveport Times quotes Johnson saying, “This church has a special meaning for my family,” explaining that he and his wife had been married in the “old Faith Chapel” and that “our children have sung on the stages of these buildings.”

At the time, Johnson was speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new $20 million First Bossier campus. That same chapel he’d been married in had just gone up in flames.

Burning Bush

On Dec. 10, 2018, about three months after Jurkovich blessed the House, a three-alarm fire destroyed about 75 percent of First Bossier. Local reporting at the time cited a multi-agency investigation, including state and federal officials, as concluding that the fire—which had started around 5:15 a.m. in the church’s accounting office—was most likely caused by a back-up computer battery that was found “melted to the floor,” according to a fire department official. The fire department responded to the alarm, and there were no witnesses.

The actual investigative report, however, includes details that didn’t appear in the numerous local reports or public statements at the time. The official conclusion was not so simple or clean, ultimately classifying the cause of the fire as “undetermined.”

The lead investigator’s findings—which were first obtained and reported by local independent journalists at Bossier Watch and shared with The Daily Beast—say that while he could conclude with an “acceptable amount of certainty” where the fire started, he “cannot name, with an acceptable amount of certainty, the ignition source,” acknowledging the “possibility of an electrical device malfunction.”

The report also notes that a dog with the K-9 unit had “hit” on accelerant material next to the computer back-up battery. A subsequent forensic analysis was inconclusive, citing an insufficient amount of material for classification, though lab reports showed the presence of known accelerants including ethyl benzyne, ethyl toluene, and toluene.

Other documents obtained by The Daily Beast show that, in the weeks ahead of the fire, the church’s financial records were being sought in a separate legal proceeding. Those records, according to the lawyer in that case, along with other financial documents that had come under scrutiny, were all held in the room where the fire originated.

In the wake of the devastation, First Bossier collected several million dollars in insurance money, which Jurkovich put towards the new $20 million facility—complete with a nine-hole golf course.

“That was that landmark we lost,” Johnson said at the 2019 groundbreaking. “It’s an emotional thing.”

The Daily Beast sent comment requests to Johnson’s office, First Bossier, and CBN, but did not receive a reply.

On a mission from God

Allison Jones, a Shreveport attorney representing the congregants suing the church, told The Daily Beast that her plaintiffs had been devout and proud members of FBB, saying they “did not make the decision to file litigation lightly.”

“In fact, it saddened them greatly,” Jones said. “I think I speak for all the plaintiffs in the litigation when I say that all they wanted were answers to questions because of concerns that First Baptist Bossier was not being managed properly.”

Jones, who also represented the former employee ahead of the fire, added that “it was only when the group was denied access to Church records that they were finally forced to take legal action.”

The complaint alleges that Jurkovich violated his fiduciary duty to his congregation by redirecting church funds to his fledgling organization, the Conservative Baptist Network, an influential right-wing Christian splinter group that Jurkovich and other pastors launched in 2020 to pull the conservative Southern Baptist Convention even further to the right. That lawsuit has been allowed to continue, receiving the blessing of the state supreme court last week.

According to the most recent amended complaint—brought “on behalf of many other FBB members who have serious concerns over the health, direction, and leadership of FBB”—Jurkovich has exercised tight control over spending, frequently treating church funds as if they were his own to manage. Upon Jurkovich’s onboarding in 2014, he and other church leaders improperly and unilaterally rewrote the 1937 bylaws without requisite member consent, the plaintiffs allege, dissolving the board of trustees and establishing a “dictatorship” where Jurkovich is “accountable to no one.”

Under Jurkovich’s revised bylaws, the church took on debt “at least nine times” without the consent of the congregation or documentation of leadership team decisions, the lawsuit says. The church’s finance committee has not recorded any official activity since 2016, according to the complaint, a vacuum that carries the “appearance of neglect” for an organization with an annual budget of $5 million, along with the $20 million rebuilding fund.

Jurkovich and other members of the leadership team have allegedly exploited that degree of control to serve their own agenda without properly consulting the congregation. Jurkovich, the suit says, has habitually obstructed accountability efforts, including purging members critical of his leadership.

The plaintiffs say Jurkovich diverted church funds to his outside organization, CBN, without member consent or any meaningful oversight. Those funds had in reality been earmarked to support the Southern Baptist Convention, according to the lawsuit, not CBN, a separate group that Jurkovich and other Christian radicals had launched in 2020 to compete with and influence the SBC, after that group, largely in consideration of its Black congregations, refused to denounce critical race theory with a ferocity befitting Jurkovich’s liking. Jurkovich serves on CBN’s steering council and acts as spokesperson.

The church and Jurkovich have denied the allegations, saying they are “without merit” and an “an attempt by former members of First Baptist Bossier to inappropriately litigate an internal church dispute.”

In a statement in response to the lawsuit, Jurkovich claimed that the plaintiffs “have never identified a legitimate need for any of the information requested” and that the church’s budget is “open and transparent” and approved annually by the members. Specifically addressing a June 2022 court order compelling the church to comply with discovery requests, Jurkovich claimed that the church had already handed over 16,000 pages of documents, but admitted they had not fully complied.

Jurkovich also used a sermon to warn congregants that “absolutely none of the information already produced or to be produced over this ruling is to be shared or leaked,” saying that if that happens, “this group will be held accountable legally.” He also said that any members who overhear discussions about the lawsuit in public should alert church leaders.

Eye of a needle

While the lawsuit does not specify exactly how much Jurkovich funneled to CBN, it does single out a number of other dubious transactions, including self-dealing of property and cush salary hikes for leadership.

One transaction under scrutiny is a $100,000 gift the church bestowed in 2015 to the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. About $80,000 of that amount came from First Bossier funds, with another $20,000 from an “unknown source.” But the gift, the former members say, was hijacked by Jurkovich to serve his “personal interests and professional ambitions.” Specifically, they say, it served his relationship with influential fundamentalist Paige Patterson, the SBTS and Southern Baptist Convention leader who teamed up with Jurkovich to launch CBN.

Patterson was later dismissed from the seminary for stealing funds, according to an SBTS report released in 2021. He was also at the center of a lawsuit alleging a cover-up of sexual abuse by Paul Pressler, which Patterson and SBC settled last year.

Despite the fact that the vast majority of that $100,000 gift came from church funds earmarked specifically for FBB’s mission support, the suit says, the endowment was made in the name of Jurkovich’s wife. As a result, the plaintiffs allege, her picture now hangs in SWBTS, along with a plaque that states, “‘Stephanie Jurkovich Hospitality Room, given by her husband Brad Jurkovich and Victory Life Church Lubbock, Texas.’”

Victory Life was Jurkovich’s previous congregation. He founded that church in 2005, a year after another congregation forced him to resign his pastorship at Southcrest Baptist Church, also based in Lubbock, according to local news reports at the time, obtained by The Daily Beast. Jurkovich’s current biography on the FBB website omits his tenure at Southcrest, as do reports announcing his 2013 hiring and onboarding. (A Southcrest official declined to comment on the events surrounding Jurkovich’s ouster.)

Other allegations in the suit say that Jurkovich privately sold the Chevrolet Suburban that the church had provided him to another pastor, with no documentation of the sale in finance committee records. That committee, the lawsuit says, had not conducted any audits until it reviewed the 2020 fiscal year, actions that were only undertaken in 2021 after members pursued concerns about mismanagement. While the audit found “deficiencies” in the finances, the suit says, Jurkovich told members it had been “the best evaluation you can get.”

“There was mistreatment of staff and volunteers, and there was a strong tendency toward nepotism regarding the hiring of staff,” Jones told The Daily Beast. She said her clients also expressed concerns about church leadership’s obdurate opacity, which “resisted the innate democratic process.”

“Once the plaintiffs took legal action, and the Court allowed review of certain records, my clients’ concerns only increased,” Jones said. “The concurrence of the Louisiana Supreme Court gives us hope that such discovery can be conducted.”

That concurrence, it turns out, was forceful.

The path of the righteous man

In that opinion, handed down last week, two justices found “no evidence” to back up the church’s claims that the leadership voting process had adhered to the bylaws. The justices also ruled that “neither the Articles in effect or the attempted ‘new’ Articles provide for an office of ‘Senior Pastor and President’”—the title to which Jurkovich lays claim. Instead, the bylaws indicate that “all corporate authority shall be exercised by or under the direction of the Leadership Team,” the justices said, with the Senior Pastor role relegated merely to “leadership and guidance.” These facts, the justices said, raise concerns about “whether the alleged new Articles were ever actually executed.”

“The coup de grâce is the requirement in the ‘new’ Articles that the Leadership Team ‘will consist of members completely loyal to the church, Senior Pastor, and the ministerial pastors,’” the opinion concluded. “One would hope that a Higher loyalty would come into play.”

It’s not Jones’ first battle against the church. She previously represented a First Bossier finance official who was terminated after reporting that Jurkovich had misspent $321,000 of budgetary funds, according to documents shared with The Daily Beast. In response to the allegation, Jones said, Jurkovich blamed the employee, prompting his firing in 2018.

Subsequently, Jones and her client sought to obtain financial records from First Bossier, a process she initiated in late October, according to a demand letter she sent the church’s lawyers, a copy of which was obtained by The Daily Beast.

About six weeks later, before Jones could access those records, the First Bossier accounting office caught fire.