Newt Gingrich wants to renew American religiosity

Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House, recently created an organization calling for a renewal of conservative evangelical and Catholic influence in American political life and aims to heal the rifts between social and fiscal conservatives. An article in the U.S. News and World Report discusses an exclusive interview with Gingrich and his plans for the organization.

Gingrich is working with David Barton, an evangelical activist, on meeting with conservative clergy and has partnered with the American Family Association to encourage participation in no-more-tax rallies. The organization, Renewing American Leadership, is also preparing a powerpoint presentation to show to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Tax Reform, and other conservative economic groups in the hope that they will see religious conservatives as the saving grace of the conservative agenda and not continue to blame them for the recent failure in the fall election.

While Renewing American Leadership is focused on convincing the Republican Party that it’s socially conservative members are also its most consistent fiscally conservative ones, there is also an ambitious anti-secular agenda running throughout the organization’s rhetoric. Gingrich is quoted in the interview saying, “In the last few years I've decided that we're in a crisis in which the secular state, if allowed, will fundamentally and radically change America against the wishes of most Americans, you've had such rising hostility to religious belief that I wanted to reach broadly into the country and dramatically raise public awareness of threats to religious liberty.”

Not to mention David Barton’s sketchy history with anti-Semitic and racist groups, Gingrich and the organization have spoken out strongly against President Obama’s stimulus package as containing legislation that restricts religious liberty, dismisses Obama’s promise to reduce the need for abortions through his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and have written a 23-page report condemning the new Capitol Visitor Center as misrepresenting America’s religious past.