{"id":2183,"date":"2011-06-03T06:00:10","date_gmt":"2011-06-03T12:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2183"},"modified":"2012-02-16T07:54:08","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T14:54:08","slug":"newt-gingrinch-evangelicals-strange-bedfellows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2183","title":{"rendered":"Newt Gingrich & Evangelicals: Strange Bedfellows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Politics makes strange bedfellows<\/strong>
\nPolitical interests can bring together people who otherwise have little in common. This saying is adapted from a line in the play The Tempest<\/a>, by William Shakespeare<\/a>: \u201cMisery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.\u201d It is spoken by a man who has been shipwrecked and finds himself seeking shelter beside a sleeping monster. <\/em>(Cultural Dictionary at Dictionary.com<\/a>)<\/h3>\n

Now, Newt Gingrich is no monster, but there are many Evangelical leaders, including the SBC’s Richard Land, who apparently\u00a0are warming up to the idea of\u00a0sleeping in the same bed with Mr. Gingrich (politically speaking, of course).\u00a0 Any port in a storm, as long as the port is Republican and not named Obama!\u00a0<\/p>\n

The more that these Evangelical leaders try to rehabilitate this Republican candidate for President, the greater their hypocrisy becomes.\u00a0 In my previous post, “Can a 2x Adulterer Be Elected President?,”<\/a>\u00a0 I wrote:<\/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 \u201cFamily Values Voters\u201d in the first place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Even though Mr. Gingrich will not be attending Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition gathering this weekend, he is nevertheless making an appeal to win over skeptical\u00a0Evangelicals.<\/a>\u00a0 With an anemic Republican field that also includes Mitt Romney,\u00a0Ron Paul, and Tim Pawlenty as announced candidates, it is somewhat understandable that some would gravitate to the man who led the Republican Party into power in the 1994 mid-term elections.<\/p>\n

But, I continue to find it both fascinating and perplexing that the “some” would include well-known Evangelicals.\u00a0 If Newt Gingrich is the best that Evangelicals can hope for in the 2012 Presidential contest, then the “Faith and Family Values” bar has been lowered\u00a0to the floor.\u00a0 And, when Evangelical “leaders” try to put a shine on a candidate that will never recover his luster, they begin\u00a0to say\u00a0totally inane things, almost on the level of\u00a0a John Cusack tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Consider\u00a0the erstwhile Ralph Reed.\u00a0 Whether he realized it or not, Reed indirectly smeared Ronald Reagan<\/a> in an attempt to sell a candidate to Evangelicals:<\/p>\n

Reed, who will host this weekend’s Washington gathering as he attempts to revive his old Christian Coalition kingmaker role, predicted evangelicals will consider Gingrich as long as he speaks about his past mistakes and his current faith in God.<\/p>\n

“I think there’s a misconception that evangelicals engage in identity voting,” Reed said, citing as evidence divorced Ronald Reagan’s win over evangelical Jimmy Carter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, are we to believe that Ronald Reagan, who divorced in 1948 and\u00a0who had been faithfully married to his second wife,\u00a0Nancy, for 28 years at the time of his candidacy in 1980, is somehow like Newt Gingrich in his marital life?\u00a0 Is that really the kind of evidence that Reed wants to use in making his pitch to Evangelicals on behalf of Gingrich?\u00a0 If so, then perhaps Mr. Reed is not quite as smart as he thinks he is.<\/p>\n

It should not be surprising that people like Ralph Reed, who find their identity in politics, don’t really care about whether candidates live out the values they say they believe.\u00a0 Well, that’s not entirely true.\u00a0 If the leader is a liberal and\/or a Democrat, then values — and the candidate’s personal moral failures — are of utmost importance to these so-called “Family Values” leaders.\u00a0 Can anyone say, “hypocrite!”<\/p>\n

While I continue to believe that Newt Gingrich has disqualified himself for the highest office in the land — not because of his divorces, but because of his serial adultery — the President of Southern Baptist’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission apparently thinks that Gingrich can overcome what Scripture seems to indicate is a\u00a0fatal leadership trait.\u00a0 I believe that\u00a0no sin is too big that God cannot forgive (that’s why grace is so amazing), but just because\u00a0even our “greatest”\u00a0sins have been wiped clean does not mean that we avoid the consequences of our sinful actions.<\/p>\n

Dr. Richard Land would better serve Southern Baptists by speaking less about politics and politicians and by speaking more on ethics and religious liberty issues (which is what Southern Baptists\u00a0are paying him\u00a0to do.)\u00a0 If he would have heeded that advice, he would not have made what was an inartful (I’m being charitable) comment about men’s and women’s views of Gingrich’s adultery:<\/p>\n

“Men are much more willing to cut him some slack than women are,” said Southern Baptist ethicist Richard Land, who said he’s asked hundreds of Southern Baptists what they think of Gingrich and his past. “I find that women don’t trust him and it doesn’t help that he’s married to the ‘other woman.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Was Dr. Land talking about men and women in general or was he speaking more specifically of Evangelicals or Southern Baptists?\u00a0 Why would men be “more willing” to accept the multiple infidelities of Mr. Gingrich?\u00a0 Is Dr. Land somehow shocked that women would distrust a man who cheated on two wives (one of whom had cancer) and who then\u00a0married “the other woman?”\u00a0 Oh, and\u00a0Gingrich’s\u00a0second act of unfaithfulness was when he was leading the charge against Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinski scandal.\u00a0 I hate to break it to Dr. Land, but there are Southern Baptist men who are not willing to cut Mr. Gingrich any slack nor to place our trust in a man who has shown on multiple occasions that he lacks the personal values to be an effective leader.<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0the views and feelings of Dr. Land and Ralph Reed concerning Newt Gingrich’s Presidential ambitions\u00a0may\u00a0resonate with more and more Evangelicals and Southern Baptists.\u00a0 It is a sad\u00a0commentary that\u00a0well-known Evangelical\u00a0“leaders” are willing to become bedfellows with someone like Mr. Gingrich.\u00a0 Family values?\u00a0 What family values?\u00a0 Nothing to see here, folks.\u00a0Let’s move along.\u00a0 I guess it gives a whole new meaning to “Family Values.”\u00a0 And, hypocrisy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Politics makes strange bedfellows Political interests can bring together people who otherwise have little in common. This saying is adapted from a line in the play The Tempest, by William Shakespeare: \u201cMisery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.\u201d It is spoken by a man who has been shipwrecked and finds himself seeking shelter beside a…<\/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":[46,64,315,354,369,370,377,502,503,636,694,721,798,801,823,830,839,853,868,3393],"class_list":["post-2183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-religion","tag-2012-presidential-primary","tag-adultery","tag-divorce","tag-ethics-religious-liberty-commission","tag-faith","tag-faith-freedom-coalition","tag-family-values","tag-hypocrisy","tag-hypocrite","tag-marriage","tag-nancy-reagan","tag-newt-gingrich","tag-presidency","tag-president-obama","tag-ralph-reed","tag-republican-presidential-candidates","tag-richard-land","tag-ronald-reagan","tag-sbc","tag-southern-baptist-convention"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-zd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2183","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=2183"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3003,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2183\/revisions\/3003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}