{"id":2011,"date":"2011-05-12T06:00:04","date_gmt":"2011-05-12T12:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2012-02-16T07:54:34","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T14:54:34","slug":"can-a-2x-adulterer-be-elected-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2011","title":{"rendered":"Can a 2x Adulterer Be Elected President?"},"content":{"rendered":"

NO WAY!!!\u00a0 If conservatives want to see Barack Obama become a one-term President, they will not rally behind former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.\u00a0 Nominating Mr. Gingrich would all but ensure the re-election of one of the weakest Presidents in our nation’s history.\u00a0 Now, let me\u00a0tell you what I really think\u00a0about\u00a0Newt Gingrich’s decision to seek the Republican nomination for President of the United States<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gingrich may have been\u00a0the brilliant politician and tactician behind the\u00a0Contract for America<\/em>\u00a0which led to the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the 1994 elections, but he is not a man who should be placed in the highest office in the land.\u00a0 In fact, he should not be nominated by the Republican Party nor should he be\u00a0supported by conservative Evangelicals and\/or “Family Values Voters” in the first place.<\/p>\n

As a Pastor, I fully believe in redemption, grace, and forgiveness.\u00a0 God’s forgiveness comes when we confess our sins and\u00a0practice repentance (1 John 1:9<\/span>).\u00a0 I’m\u00a0not sure that Gingrich’s\u00a0acknowledgment of his affairs\u00a0rises to the level of Biblical repentance, but I could be wrong:<\/p>\n

“There\u2019s no question at times of my life, partially driven by how passionately I felt about this country, that I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate. And what I can tell you is that when I did things that were wrong, I wasn\u2019t trapped in situation ethics, I was doing things that were wrong, and yet, I was doing them. I found that I felt compelled to seek God\u2019s forgiveness. Not God\u2019s understanding, but God\u2019s forgiveness. I do believe in a forgiving God. And I think most people, deep down in their hearts hope there\u2019s a forgiving God.” (full article here<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If, as House Speaker, Mr. Gingrich was driven by his passion for his country to commit an extra-marital affair, one can only imagine the “passion” that he would have as President.\u00a0 We’ve already been down that\u00a0road with Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n

I’m certainly glad that Mr. Gingrich “felt compelled to seek God’s forgiveness.”\u00a0 <\/em>When any of us sins, we should seek God’s mercy and forgiveness. But, just because we have been forgiven (by God and others)\u00a0does not mean that we somehow magically avoid the consequences of our actions.\u00a0 I do\u00a0not believe that\u00a0Gingrich’s (or any other politician’s)\u00a0multiple divorces automatically disqualifies him from\u00a0running for President.\u00a0 However,\u00a0committing adultery in both his first two marriages\u00a0(which may have contributed to the dissolution of those unions)\u00a0should at least\u00a0cause\u00a0conservative Christian voters to refrain from casting a ballot for Mr. Gingrich (notwithstanding Pat Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network’s advice to Evangelicals not to “write him off.”<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Apparently, Newt Gingrich does not believe his marital infidelities disqualify him from seeking the Presidency.\u00a0 In responding to a question from Chris Wallace on charges that he was hypocritical during the Bill Clinton\/Monica Lewinski affair (because of his own extra-marital affair at the time), Newt Gingrich nicely compartmentalized his private life from his public life:<\/p>\n

“No. I thought to myself if I cannot do what I have to do as a public leader, I would have resigned.” (full article here<\/a>)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, here is former Southern Baptist — now Roman Catholic — Newt Gingrich who appears to be saying that his own adultery, while serving as Speaker of the House, did not prevent him from being a public leader.\u00a0 We can try to redefine leadership all we want, but if conservative Christians (and others) were arguing that Bill Clinton could not lead because of his affair with a young intern, then there is no way to make the argument that a serial adulterer — no matter how conservative — should be allowed to lead our country as President.\u00a0 To make that argument would be the\u00a0height of hypocrisy.\u00a0 Of course,\u00a0for those who supported Bill Clinton during his impeachment\u00a0to now\u00a0make the argument that Gingrich’s private life should somehow disqualify him from the Presidency would likewise be just as hypocritical.<\/p>\n

For conservatives — especially Evangelical Christians — to give Mr. Gingrich a pass,\u00a0they must\u00a0answer this question, “Would you also be willing to give Bill Clinton or John Edwards a pass?”\u00a0 Newt Gingrich may be a smart man in the world of politics.\u00a0 He may be a brilliant conservative thinker.\u00a0 He may espouse views that most conservatives could support.\u00a0 He may even be forgiven of his sins.\u00a0 But, the Bible tells me that he is a man who lacks sense.\u00a0 For a man who wants to be the leader of the free world, that is a disqualifying character trait that will be impossible to overcome, no matter how smart you think you are:<\/p>\n

“He who commits adultery lacks sense; he who does it destroys himself.\u00a0 He will get wounds and dishonor, and his disgrace will not be wiped away.”<\/span> (Proverbs 6:32-33 ESV)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NO WAY!!!\u00a0 If conservatives want to see Barack Obama become a one-term President, they will not rally behind former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.\u00a0 Nominating Mr. Gingrich would all but ensure the re-election of one of the weakest Presidents in our nation’s history.\u00a0 Now, let me\u00a0tell you what I really think\u00a0about\u00a0Newt Gingrich’s decision to seek the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[34,35],"tags":[46,64,66,129,151,363,397,451,648,675,721,798,802,811,3392,851,918,1049],"class_list":["post-2011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion","tag-2012-presidential-primary","tag-adultery","tag-affairs","tag-barack-obama","tag-bill-clinton","tag-extra-marital-affairs","tag-forgiveness","tag-grace-2","tag-mercy","tag-monica-lewinski","tag-newt-gingrich","tag-presidency","tag-presidential-politics","tag-proverbs","tag-religion","tag-roman-catholic","tag-southern-baptist","tag-wisdom"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-wr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2011"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3005,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2011\/revisions\/3005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}