Iowa House Republican admits "rookie mistake" over extremist handout

But Brett Barker hasn't disavowed its contents

State Representative Brett Barker floor manages a bill during Iowa House debate on March (photo first published on his political Facebook page)

This original reporting and analysis first appeared at Bleeding Heartland and is shared here as part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. For regular emails linking to all recent Bleeding Heartland articles and commentary, subscribe to the free Evening Heartland newsletter.

First-term State Representative Brett Barker has acknowledged he made a “rookie mistake” when he authorized the distribution of a right-wing Christian pamphlet to all of his Iowa House colleagues. Barker told Bleeding Heartland he didn’t read the publication by Capitol Ministries before it was circulated in the chamber on March 19.

But Barker has not publicly disavowed the contents of the weekly “Bible Study,” which portrays political adversaries as tools of Satan, calls on believers to “evangelize their colleagues,” depicts same-sex marriage and LGBTQ existence as “satanic perversions,” and condemns “women’s liberation” as a “scheme of the devil.”

Staff for Governor Kim Reynolds and U.S. Senator Joni Ernst did not respond to Bleeding Heartland’s inquiries about their association with Capitol Ministries or the views expressed in its latest publication. Both Reynolds and Ernst are among the “Bible Study Sponsors” listed on the front page of the document distributed in the Iowa House.

“THE DIVIDE OF GOOD VERSUS EVIL”

Click here to view the full text of the March 17 edition of “The Political Leaders Weekly Bible Study” by Capitol Ministries. The group produces this series for members of Congress and state legislators, and recently resumed a regular “White House Cabinet Bible Study” promoting the same exclusionary theology.

Iowa Starting Line’s Zachary Oren Smith aptly described the pamphlet as “pretty banana pants.”

The essay titled “How to Best Understand America’s Deep Divide” purports to offer “a biblical perspective” on “the ultimate reasons for the deep divide in our nation.” The writing style fluctuates in a bizarre way. Sometimes the author uses a scholarly tone, as when analyzing the Apostle Paul’s choice of Greek words and verb tenses. More often, the piece offers sweeping generalizations, with occasional exclamation points but no evidence or nuance.

We learn on page 3 that non-believers are pawns of the devil, and that

The actual battles believers face in office over certain biblically based policy issues are not necessarily with adverse human beings but with Satan’s influence over them.

The document asserts that believers have the “discernment and the ability to stand firm against these combatants,” who “are part of the devil’s schemes.” (emphasis in original) It repeatedly claims political controversies in the U.S. represent “the divide of good versus evil.”

Winning these “spiritual battles” requires “spiritual weaponry”: “This is why evangelizing your elected and appointed colleagues is of the utmost importance to victory in and over the matters that currently divide the nation.”

Capitol Ministries reduces all political disagreements to religious warfare, with no middle ground. From page 7:

To understand what the Bible teaches in this regard is to understand that the ultimate struggles in the Capitol are not political but spiritual. Again, herein is the basis of the divide in our country. It therefore follows that there are really only two combatants behind all the scenes that play out on the Hill: Christ vs. Satan. Regardless of political affiliation, everyone, including the media, works to some degree for one side or the other: Christ or Satan.

The bible study then moves to “falsities” that Satan uses to deceive “biblically illiterate” political leaders.

A LONG LIST OF “SATANIC” ADVERSARIES

Capitol Ministries sees “three aspects of Secular Humanism” as particularly devastating to American culture. Same-sex marriage, homosexuality, “gender neutrality,” and abortion are lumped together as “satanic perversions” that “attempt to destroy God’s fundamental building blocks of society—the nuclear family.” (Never mind that for much of human history, extended family living was more prevalent than a “nuclear family” structure.)

The assessment of “Women’s Liberation” is among the most bonkers passages in the twelve-page pamphlet.

Satan knows that if he can get women out of their intended complementary role to their husbands that he will own the next generation, and that is exactly what is happening in America today. Children desperately need their mom’s nurturing so that they are not hooked by Satan’s schemes of drugs, sex, and slothfulness in their formative years which then often destroy their later productive years. The women’s liberation movement largely disconnects from God’s plan for necessary child incubation, bonding, and catechism. Again, if he can destroy the family, he can destroy the nation. Women’s liberation, akin to male chauvinism, is a scheme of the devil.

A third supposedly harmful aspect of secular humanism is a “New Morality,” which holds “there is no absolute truth.”

Capitol Ministries also identifies three kinds of “false religions” Satan uses to lead people astray. It portrays Islam as based on “passages plagiarized from the Old Testament” and grounded in violence and salvation through jihad instead of faith.

To my surprise, this pamphlet—steeped in Christian supremacy—does not target Judaism or even mention the Jewish faith. The devil’s other two “false religions” are strains of “Christianity,” with scare quotes indicating that they are not authentic belief systems. According to the bible study, “Works-based” Christianity fails because it suggests people can “work their own way to heaven,” rather than gain salvation through “faith in Christ alone.”

Several paragraphs attack “Liberal” Christianity, alluding to mainline Protestant denominations. “Many of America’s former Christian denominations (and their educational institutions) have been infected and changed forever by this and as a result are only false religion shells wearing the name ‘Christian’ today.”

Finally, Capitol Ministries holds that Satan uses certain political ideologies such as socialism or communism to persecute the Church, and employs personal temptations “to trip up your effectiveness for Christ.”

The pamphlet exhorts believers to stand firm against all of the above manifestations of the devil’s schemes.

Under these toxic standards for distinguishing good from evil, few of the 100 Iowa House members could pass muster.

“IT’S A ROOKIE MISTAKE”

Soon after the Bible Study appeared on desks in the House chamber on March 19, Democratic State Representative Elinor Levin shared some pictures on her Facebook page. She noted that Barker had authorized the piece, and said other House Republicans had distributed similar publications in the past. Levin (who is Jewish and part of the LGBTQ community) added, “This is the degrading, regressive perspective from which many of my colleagues are assessing the laws in our state.”

Zachary Oren Smith highlighted the publication in an Iowa Starting Line video the next day, reading some way-out-there quotes to great effect.

I emailed Barker with several questions on March 20. Among other things, I wondered whether anyone asked him to distribute the Bible Study, or whether he did so on his own initiative. Would he support banning same-sex marriages in Iowa and across the country? Does he think his female colleagues in the legislature are abetting Satan by not fulfilling “their intended complementary role to their husbands”?

He replied less than 30 minutes later: “I’ve been asked to sign off on dozens of documents this session. I was in a hurry while walking through the rotunda and did not ask to read this one and that’s my error. It’s a rookie mistake and going forward I will be asking for things to be sent to me so I can take time to review before initialing distribution forms.”

I appreciated the rapid response.

Yet three days later, Barker has not posted any public apology for signing off on the handout. Nor did he offer a point of personal privilege on the House floor following debate on March 19 or March 20. That would have been an easy way to clarify his views on various explosive claims made by Capitol Ministries.

The Republican might expect the unpleasantness to blow over. To my knowledge, none of the mainstream media covered the story. (The Iowa House and Senate passed a lot of newsworthy bills on March 18, 19, and 20.) Since Barker routinely restricts who can comment on his political Facebook page, nothing there acknowledges the controversy.

But at this writing, more than 550 people have shared Levin’s Facebook post. Iowa Starting Line’s video has more than 200 shares on that platform, more than 1,370 shares on Instagram, and dozens of shares on TikTok. A separate Iowa Starting Line post about the pamphlet has nearly 350 Facebook shares.

So make no mistake: a large number of politically engaged Iowans heard about the House Republican who approved an attack on “women’s liberation” and the LGBTQ community. For many of these people, it’s probably the only thing they know about Brett Barker. And as the saying goes, you never get a second chance to make a first impression.

To be clear, I don’t think Barker sees all political disagreements through a “Christ vs. Satan” lens. This past week, he incorporated suggestions from Democratic State Representative Austin Baeth in an amendment he attached to Senate File 233, commonly known as the “Right to Try Act.” During the March 20 floor debate, Baeth thanked Barker for listening to his concerns and adding more consumer protections to the bill, which allows patients with “life-threatening or severely debilitating illness” to have access to certain individualized treatments.

At the same time, Iowans living in House district 51 (covering much of rural Story and Marshall counties) may reasonably doubt whether their representative will give them a fair hearing, if they don’t adhere to a specific brand of exclusionary Christianity. After all, Barker signed off on a document depicting the LGBTQ movement as “a satanic attack on core biblical truth” only a few weeks after voting for a bill targeting transgender Iowans for discrimination.

If Barker doesn’t buy into the Capitol Ministries view of politics as spiritual warfare, he should tell his constituents and fellow House members where he stands.

Whatever your religious beliefs (or lack thereof), we can all agree on one rule to live by: never sign any document without reading it first.