Former US House Speaker Newt Gingrich – a Catholic Republican – claimed last night that Western secularism is as great a threat to Christianity as that posed by terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida.
However he believes that in the current culture war raging between faith-heads and secularists, religion will eventually win.
Addressing about 300 people at the Ave Maria School of Law in Florida, Gingrich, according to this report, said:
Either the radical secularists will succeed in controlling the Government and driving religion out of American life or the people who believe in faith will succeed in controlling government and insist that you cannot impose radical values on American people.
He expressed optimism that the religious side could prevail.
We’re not going to give up on America. We’re not going to give up on God.
Gingrich, who represented a Georgia district in the House for 20 years and ran unsuccessfully for president in 2012, said religious institutions such as the Ave Maria School of Law can serve as “centers of resistance” to the “horrendous wars against Christianity” waged by secular and terrorist organisations.
The secular philosophy dominates universities and is embraced by newspaper editors and Hollywood, Gingrich added. It represents:
A repudiation of everything we’ve learned about the importance of the spiritual world.
Gingrich converted to Catholicism – the religion of his third wife, Callista Gingrich, above – nine years ago. Callista Gingrich serves as US ambassador to the Holy See.
When she was appointed last year, political cartoonist David Macadam, of the Oligarch Kings blog, tore into her with a vengeance:
She has absolutely no particular qualification to be an ambassador anywhere, far less in the factious nest of vipers that is the Vatican … She will sit and look pretty at restaurant tables making small talk.
It’s just a nice wee sinecure for an oligarch’s wife. Newt’s retired so can sit and bore them all with war stories. Callista will get a dress allowance too you know. Guess who pays for that? Uh-huh that will be you again.
Gingrich is perhaps most widely known for his 1994 “Contract with America” – conservative proposals that led to the first Republican-controlled US House in four decades.
The split between Americans of faith and those who are secular poses “an enormous danger to the country,” he said after the dinner.
They are so fundamentally different about the very nature of life. Eventually, it will be resolved, one way or the other. One side will win, one side will lose.
Gingrich is now a TV commentator and a big supporter and confidante of President Donald Trump. He told guests at the dinner that Trump is bringing the country back in the right direction.
But it’s not possible to have a President of the United States fix everything.
Or in Trump’s case, fix anything!