GetReligion
Monday, April 14, 2025

Gov. Greg Abbott

A holy ghost in Dallas: 'Servant leader' steps into key public office in the Lone Star State

Dear Dallas Morning News: Please ask the obvious follow-up question.

That's my simple request of the major Texas daily as it reports on new Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson.

No, I'm not suggesting a holy ghost in Johnson's first name, although it certainly wouldn't hurt for a reporter to ask if there's a story behind it.

But the more newsworthy detail missing from the Morning News' coverage relates to Johnson's description of herself as a "servant leader."

This was the Dallas newspaper's lede early last month when Johnson's appointment was announced:

Gov. Greg Abbott on Tuesday appointed a new Dallas County district attorney who says she sees herself as a "servant leader" who wants the public to believe in the prosecutors at the DA's office.

Again in today's newspaper — in a story on Johnson's swearing in Monday — the Morning News includes this note:

Johnson calls herself a "servant leader" who wants to work with residents to make the district attorney's office better.

Here's the question: What — or better yet, who — is Johnson's inspiration for that description of her leadership style? Could it possibly be Jesus Christ, who says in Mark 10:42-45 of the New Testament:


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More insight, less bias needed in media coverage of crosses on Texas police cars

Some Texas newspaper reports on Gov. Greg Abbott supporting the display of crosses on police cars have been pretty sketchy.

Sketchy as in half there.

Sketchy as in incomplete.

Sketchy as in, well, you know?

Take The Dallas Morning News, for example:

AUSTIN – After saying ‘In God We Trust’ could be displayed on cop cars last year, Gov. Greg Abbott has now also come out in support of displaying the cross on patrol vehicles.
In a brief sent to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, Abbott wrote that the crosses met the muster of separation of church and state.
“Even under the U.S. Supreme Court’s expansive interpretation of the Establishment Clause’s limited and unambiguous text, the Court has never held that public officials are barred from acknowledging our religious heritage,” Abbott wrote in his brief. “To the contrary, the U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized the demographic and historical reality that Americans ‘are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.’”
The brief is in response to some controversy surrounding the Brewster County Sheriff’s office, which recently allowed its officers to put bumper stickers of the cross on the back of patrol vehicles. Abbott has already spoken in support of the Brewster County Sheriff.
“The Brewster County deputies’ crosses neither establish a religion nor threaten any person’s ability to worship God, or decline to worship God, in his own way,” Abbott wrote in his brief to Paxton.

From there, the Dallas newspaper provides scathing quotes from the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, both condemning the governor's brief.

And that's it.


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