Louie Gohmert: “I thank my friend, my colleague, and my brother in Christ for yielding and for hosting this Special Order. To follow up…”

“I thank my friend, my colleague, and my brother in Christ for yielding and for hosting this Special Order. To follow up on what Congressman Lamborn said, the very first book that the United States Congress authorized to be published at taxpayer expense was a book called the Bible. Not only that, I would also point to a quote, as there is a lot of talk about socialism and how it would work in this country. Dostoevsky hypothesized about it at the end of the 1800s, and Solzhenitsyn didn't hypothesize it, he lived what Dostoevsky said, and that is, the problem with socialism is not economic, the problem with socialism is atheism. And that is diametrically opposed to how this country was started. In fact, I had asked for the Congressional Research Service to give me information about the role of the church and the Bible in our founding, and this is derived from that. The first Christian church services in this United States Capitol were held when the government moved to Washington in the fall of 1800. They were conducted in the Hall of the House. During church services the Speaker's podium was used as a preacher's pulpit. Within a year of his inauguration, President Jefferson began attending church services in the Chamber of the House of Representatives. Throughout his administration, Thomas Jefferson permitted and encouraged church services in executive branch buildings.…”