Amy Sullivan, author of The Party Faithful has a wonderful post at Swampland on the futility of Newt Gingrich's apparent attempt to court evangelical support for his Presidential campaign. My favorite part of the post is this: "Gingrich seems constitutionally incapable of engaging in the kind of confession and repentance that evangelicals want. His explanation on the Christian Broadcasting Network that his affairs were a result of his patriotic passion and working too hard is unlikely to win over a single evangelical voter and raises the obvious question of how the job of president would decrease his political passion and workload." One might also wonder what patriotism and working too hard have to do with the affairs that led to the divorces.
Sullivan suggests that Gingrich's sins have been forgiven by the Catholc Church (he converted to Catholicism in recent years). Possibly, -- but I am guessing the third marriage (assuming the presence of a sexual relationship) would itself be sinful under Catholic docrtrine in the absence of annulments or flaws in the first two marriages. In any event, Sullivan reports that the evangelicals expect a George Bush-like conversion story which they have yet to receive from Gingrich.
For additional discussion of Sullivan's post, see Mark Silk's discussion at Spiritual Politics.
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