In a recent Sunday-morning appearance at a North Charleston church, Newt Gingrich went nearly 40 minutes without addressing what is arguably his biggest liability with Southern evangelical voters: his multiple, well-publicized affairs and divorces. Finally, as he wrapped up a talk on the place of Christianity in early American history, he made a passing reference to the topic that was surely on many people’s minds.
“I don’t come here today as a perfect person. I don’t come here today without — I guess the advertisement is — baggage,” Gingrich said. “I am a person. I’ve lived a fairly long life. At 68, I’m a grandfather … I am coming to you today as somebody who has the courage to stand up for the truth, somebody who is prepared to fight for the America you and I believe in, and somebody who, in the words of Pope John Paul II, really does believe, ‘Be not afraid.'”
Cathedral of Praise, a nondenominational megachurch, recently posted videos to its website from speaking appearances by Gingrich and Rick Santorum. The two contenders for the Republican presidential nomination had been invited by the conservative Summerville 9-12 Project to speak on the weekend before South Carolina’s first-in-the-south Republican primary election.
Although the two candidates had been invited to speak in place of Pastor Mike Lewis’ sermon — Santorum at an evening service on Saturday, Jan. 14, Gingrich at the 11 a.m. service on Jan. 15 — neither man delivered a homily. John Hull, who is the chairman of Summerville 9-12 and a member at Cathedral, says his political group sent an invitation to all of the Republican candidates to speak at the church on the principle of American exceptionalism. The talks weren’t sermons, but he says they were “definitely not campaign speeches” either. Michele Bachmann had also accepted the invitation, but she suspended her campaign Jan. 4 after getting sixth place in the Iowa caucus.
Hull says the church did not imply any endorsement by hosting the contenders. “Biblically speaking, we have a responsibility to be involved with our governance, and that is the role of the church, not to pick candidates,” he says.
Not everyone in attendance was thrilled to see politicians on the stage that weekend, though. Jimmy Sprague, of Goose Creek, says he had been absent the previous Sunday and was not aware that the candidates would be speaking. He attended the 9 a.m. Sunday service, during which the church showed clips from Santorum’s talk the night before and then held a phone conference with Gingrich before his in-person appearance at the 11 a.m. service.
“I go to church to praise God and after my week,” Sprague says. “That’s where I get my sanity or whatever you want to call it … I don’t go to church to hear political people, and I don’t go to political events to hear people talk bout God.”
Apparently, Sprague was not the only one who felt this way. About halfway through the service, when he heard Gingrich’s voice coming through the church’s loudspeakers, he headed for the door and saw a cluster of other people leaving at the same time.
“I don’t like Newt Gingrich,” Sprague says. “I don’t believe anything he says if he’s standing on a stack of BIbles or in my church.” Sprague, who is not a member of Cathedral, had planned to attend a new members’ class the following week, but after seeing Gingrich’s face on a projector screen, he changed his mind.
Hull says he does not know what motivated people to walk out of the service, but he believes there are “major myths about our Constitution” — specifically on the topic of separation of church and state — “that have been promulgated by either a malicious or an indifferent press.” He points out that Thomas Jefferson opened up executive branch buildings for church services, and that Patrick Henry gave his famously stirring “Give me liberty or give me death” speech in a Richmond, Va., church.
Pastor Lewis: “Whoever you vote for, I think you will have to attest that there’s a man who loves his country and knows this country. Regardless of who you vote for, he’s one of us, and I think we ought to pray for him.”
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