Vexcalibur wrote:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/52023.html
Quote:
"I have two grandchildren — Maggie is 11, Robert is 9," Gingrich said at Cornerstone Church here. "I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time they're my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American."
o_O
Let us panic now.
On a pedantic note, I will point out that it's possible for a country to be nominally secular, numerically dominated by atheists, but politically dominated by a cohesive religious minority.
But that's probably not what he meant. His quote was more likely a poorly expressed variant on the conservative meme that says Islam is going to fill the spiritual void left by Christianity, because nature abhors a vacuum, and so on.
It's undoubtedly true that the character of the US has changed hugely in the time that someone like Newt Gingrich has been alive. And I do not see why anyone is morally obliged to celebrate the fact. Of course, critical discussion concerning
all the ways in which the US has changed over recent decades has been suppressed for so long I'm quite prepared to believe the majority of people who say their main concern is Christianity really mean it.
In which case , Gingrich can perhaps slightly console himself with the fact that - as naturalplastic points out - Mexican-derived Catholics are more likely to achieve political power in the US before Muslims do.
Anyway, I look forward eagerly to the next episode of "let's all laugh at what this conservative said!!"
29 Mar 2011, 12:19 pm
