Via the Virginian-Pilot come the following from Newt Gingrich:

“I think this is one of the most critical moments in American history,” Gingrich said. “We are living in a period where we are surrounded by paganism.”

Gingrich was at a meeting at Rock Church in Virginia Beach along with Mike Huckabee and Oliver North.

Much could be said about Gingrich’s statement, but what strikes me most about it is that this reinforces my own view that Gingrich is very much looking to run for president in 2012. Such a statement has but one goal and that is base excitation. What I find at least passingly amusing is that Newt isn’t really Mr. Evangelical–not only has he never really (to my memory) based his political offerings from a religious point of view, his personal life hasn’t exactly been the stuff of religious legend.

Indeed, I find the whole thing a rather cynical pander designed to score cheap political points rather than a principled position.

Also at the meeting, Huckabee engaged in what I consider the worst kind of blending of religion and politics (which he has done before) which barely rises above praying that God would help one’s football team to win:

“The notion that we are just one of many among equals is nonsense,” Huckabee said. The United States is a “blessed” nation, he said, calling American revolutionaries’ defeat of the British empire “a miracle from God’s hand.”

The same kind of miracle, he said, led California voters to approve Proposition 8, which overturned a state law legalizing same-sex marriages.

Voters “did it because some things are right and some things are wrong and they had to make a stand,” said Huckabee

The problem (or, really, one of the problems) with such reasoning is that it would follow, therefore, that if California turns around and votes to reverse itself that either a) God changed his mind, or b) the miracle wasn’t much of a miracle. If anything he seems to be saying that stuff he likes is obviously God’s doing–and that strikes me as hubris. Further, such thinking creates all kinds of logical problems: if God affected the vote in CA, why didn’t he influence the state legislature in Maine (or elsewhere)? Why did he ever allow it to be legal in the first place? Why is it even an issue? Assertions such as Huckabee’s not only place a particular point of view in a privileged position, but they also create some bizarre (and utterly illogical) theological (and political) conundrums.

5 Responses to “Newt and the Pagans”

1. Battle Without Honor or Humanity | Lean Left Says:
   June 7th, 2009 at 12:58 am

   [...] Steven [not Stuart] Taylor gets it: Gingrich was at a meeting at Rock Church in Virginia Beach along with Mike Huckabee and Oliver [...]

2. Leonard Says:
   June 7th, 2009 at 6:45 am

   Neo-Pagans, in all their diversity of belief, represent a vanishingly small percentage of the population; something like .2% or some similarly miniscule number. Newt, if your supermajority has managed to get itself “surrounded” by one of the tiniest minorities there is, yer doin it rong.

3. M. Bouffant Says:
   June 7th, 2009 at 6:51 am

   Not Mr. Evangelical indeed, w/ his recent conversion to Catholicism.

   And:

   “I am not a citizen of the world,” said Gingrich, who was first elected to the U.S. House from Georgia in 1978 and served as speaker from 1995 to 1999. “I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with our creator.”

   I thought citizenship had something to do w/ place of birth & the 14th Amendment, but Newt’s the “historian,” isn’t he?

   Virtually everything Huck & Newt were quoted as saying was historically & Constitutionally wrong, & suggestive of theocracy.

   Try it like this:

   “I am a citizen of the United States because only in the United States does citizenship start with belief in our creator.”

   Frightening.

4. ex-Democrat Says:
   June 7th, 2009 at 8:04 am

   As a life-long agnostic I’ve never understood peoples’ FEAR of Christianity. Fear. I can feel it in the posts above mine.

   This country was founded upon relief from religious persecution, but over time that has ceased to include Christians.

   I never could figure it out until I did some research. I found that Christians are truly the enemy of certain elite, wealthy groups in the world. Christianity is one of their roadblocks to power.

   Hey. You didn’t really think abortion was about a “woman’s right to choose did you?” I used to. No more. That’s the surface reason for the sheep. The real reason is to separate the people from their religions. This is how “they” operate. Always a cover story to what’s really going on behind the scenes.

   PETA is another example (can you guess the hidden agenda?)

   Global warming…er…climate change (did you know there is carbon “stock” exchange all set to go? guess who benefits?)

   So every time one of the sheep bashes a Christian, the puppet masters rejoice.

5. Leonard Says:
   June 7th, 2009 at 9:50 am

   did you know there is carbon “stock” exchange all set to go? guess who benefits?

   Could it be…SATAN?!

   /church_lady