"Greater love hath no man than to attend the Episcopal Church with his wife"
About this Quote
Johnson’s line works because it smuggles marital warfare into the sanctity of scripture, then lets the punchline land in the pews. “Greater love hath no man...” is instantly recognizable as a King James cadence (John 15:13), a phrase about martyrdom and ultimate sacrifice. Johnson drags that solemn register into the realm of domestic obligation: not dying for your friends, but sitting through Episcopal liturgy because your wife wants to go. The joke isn’t just that church can be boring; it’s that the performance of devotion is often less about God than about sustaining the social contract at home.
As a president, Johnson knew how ritual operates: shared ceremonies bind groups, even when belief is uneven. The Episcopal Church, with its reputation for propriety and upper-class respectability, adds a second layer. This isn’t some rowdy revival tent; it’s polished, restrained, and, in the stereotype, faintly bloodless. Enduring it becomes a comic stand-in for the everyday compromises that prop up “respectable” life.
The subtext is Johnson’s favorite terrain: power dressed up as intimacy. He casts himself as the husband-hero making a sacrifice, but the sacrifice is conspicuously minor, which is precisely why it scans as true. Politics runs on that same calculus: grand moral language used to sanctify small, transactional acts. The line lets him sound folksy while skewering piety and politeness in one go, a reminder that even the loftiest rhetoric is often just a suit we put on for someone else.
As a president, Johnson knew how ritual operates: shared ceremonies bind groups, even when belief is uneven. The Episcopal Church, with its reputation for propriety and upper-class respectability, adds a second layer. This isn’t some rowdy revival tent; it’s polished, restrained, and, in the stereotype, faintly bloodless. Enduring it becomes a comic stand-in for the everyday compromises that prop up “respectable” life.
The subtext is Johnson’s favorite terrain: power dressed up as intimacy. He casts himself as the husband-hero making a sacrifice, but the sacrifice is conspicuously minor, which is precisely why it scans as true. Politics runs on that same calculus: grand moral language used to sanctify small, transactional acts. The line lets him sound folksy while skewering piety and politeness in one go, a reminder that even the loftiest rhetoric is often just a suit we put on for someone else.
Quote Details
| Topic | Husband & Wife |
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