Does Republican presidential candidate and Former Speaker of the US House of Representative Newt Gingrich believe that the United States Constitution is based on the Old Testament?
On September 19, 2011, at an Orlando, Florida hotel, Republican presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry gathered, along with hundreds of pastors brought in for a secretive "Pastors Policy Briefing" meeting (which excluded the press), and listened as Christian history revisionist David Barton, former Vice Chair of the Texas GOP, explained (link to video clip of Barton) that key concepts in the United States Constitution were derived from Old Testament scripture, including from the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus.
Footage from Gingrich's and Barton's talks at the September 19th meeting is now being showcased in a 2-hour long video that's being screened in churches across America, titled "One Nation Under God".
In his September 19th talk featured in the "One Nation Under God" video, David Barton declares that the authors of the Constitution "gave us the First Amendment, not because it guarantees separation of church and state - there's no such thing". As Barton went on to explain,
"Strikingly, if you look through that document, it is amazing how many Biblical clauses appear in Constitutional clauses. Biblical verses and phrases - you'll find them throughout - so many concepts, the founding fathers pointed to bible verses as the source of those concepts. See, today we're "oh no, the government's secular" - that's that compartmentalization again. They never believed it was secular. They looked to God to be included in everything they did.
While Barton narrates, the video shows the pairing of important clauses in the Constitution with their alleged sources in scripture from the Bible's books of Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezra, Exodus, Deuteronomy and Leviticus. The Book of Leviticus prescribes stoning as a capital punishment for a range of transgressions including blasphemy and cursing, adultery, and witchcraft.
Shortly after in his talk, Barton delves into the First Amendment:
"Now, after you get the Constitution done, you got the first congress, now you need a Bill of Rights. And so we come back with the Bill of Rights - those first ten amendments to the Constitution... they gave us the First Amendment, not because it guarantees separation of church and state - there's no such thing - it guarantees the free exercise of religion. They weren't trying to secularize the public square. They wanted to make sure that you could include God in those areas... Now, we don't teach that much in history anymore, but the documents are really clear."
The First Amendment states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The clause is currently interpreted as prohibiting government support for sectarian religious tendencies.
In a speech at the September 19th "Pastor's Policy Briefing" also featured in the Champion The Vote video, Newt Gingrich states,
"It is a lie to teach American history as though this is a secular nation in which God did not reappear, again and again and again for every generation...
Frankly, we should be very direct about this fight. I, for one, am tired of the long trend towards a secular, atheist system of thought dominating our colleges, dominating our media."
Gingrich has made numerous appearances at events alongside David Barton, head of the nonprofit group Wallbuilders and author of numerous works of Christian nationalist history revisionism, and Gingrich has pledged to seek Barton's advice during his 2012 presidential campaign.
"One Nation Under God", which heavily promotes Newt Gingrich as the candidate who can best enable Christian nationalist voters "retake" America in the 2012 election, is connected to pastor David Lane's ongoing Renewal Project/Pastors Policy Briefing events being held over the past several years in swing states including in Iowa, that trace back to efforts by Lane to rally pastors behind Rick Perry in Texas. An April 2, 2011 New York Times story characterized Lane's events as a "broad effort to revitalize the religious right."
"One Nation Under God" is being deployed in a well-funded and organized national campaign, orchestrated by an entity, whose efforts seem to interlock with Lane's Renewal Project events, called United in Purpose/Champion The Vote that aims to register and get to the polls, millions of new conservative evangelical voters--with Gingrich as the current beneficiary. The effort includes the targeting of African-American and Hispanic evangelicals.
Since widespread publicity and controversy concerning Texas Governor Rick Perry's The Response prayer event in August 2011*, which was dominated by apostles of the New Apostolic Reformation, conventional wisdom holds that Texas governor Rick Perry has been the candidate of choice for the hard evangelical right in the 2012 presidential election.
But the timing for the release of the "One Nation Under God" video, especially in light of the low key, but well-connected effort behind the video suggests that power centers and political kingmakers on the evangelical right may have opted to throw their weight behind Former Speaker of the House Gingrich.
According to the "One Nation Under God" video, a UIP/Champion The Vote analysis shows that registering five million new Christian voters in 21 targeted swing states could determine the outcome of the upcoming 2012 election.
Newt Gingrich and the New Apostolic Reformation
As reported by the LA Times, one of the major financial backers of the Champion The Vote, United In Prayer initiative is tech boom entrepreneur Ken Eldred, whose several nonprofit foundations are endowed with upwards of $50 million dollars. In his 2008 book Dominion! How Kingdom Action Can Transform The World, C. Peter Wagner identifies Eldred as a "marketplace apostle" who has provided "what might prove to be our most viable guidelines for a new strategy of social transformation."
According to the 990 tax forms of his several "Living Stones" foundations, Ken Eldred has financed several aspects of Wagner's movement including the work of apostle George Otis Jr., whose Transformation videos show evangelical believers achieving dominance over cities, towns, and geographic areas by driving away demon spirits and hounding out or neutralizing ideological foes, often portrayed as witches and warlocks.
In September 2008, shortly before the 2008 presidential election, footage surfaced showing a star from Otis, Jr.'s first Transformation video, Kenyan evangelist Thomas Muthee, blessing and anointing Sarah Palin against "every form of witchcraft."
The "One Nation Under God" also features National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference President Samuel Rodriguez, listed as a member of Peter Wagner's International Coalition of Apostles in 2009 and 2010, who currently works closely with many of Wagner's Apostles and serves under NAR apostle Steve Perrea and ICA apostle Pat Francis.
Samuel Rodriguez, who has been dubbed the 'Hispanic Karl Rove' and purports to represent ten million Hispanic born-again evangelicals and 5 million Hispanic charismatic Catholics, appears to be one of the leading architects of a strategy designed to peel off traditional Democratic Party constituencies, such as Hispanic voters. As Rodriguez told Charisma magazine for a November 5th, 2008 story,
"White evangelicals by themselves cannot preserve a biblical world view or a biblical agenda within American political and public policy arena. It is impossible. 2008 said it is over."
Former Speaker of the House Gingrich's courtship of the NAR has included his participation, in Summer 2009, at an event held at the Virginia Beach Rock Church of the late John Gimenez, an apostle in NAR mastermind C. Peter Wagner's International Coalition of Apostles. Blesseing and anointing both Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee at the event was TheCall cofounder Lou Engle, who has served on Wagner's elite Apostolic Council of Prophetic Elders (ACPE).
[video, below: Lou Engle anoints Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee]
Gingrich returned, along with Lou Engle, to the Rock Church in 2011 for an event advertised under the title "Rediscovering God in America". Also receiving top billing at the event was Wallbuilders founder David Barton, a close colleague of top New Apostolic Reformation leader Cindy Jacobs - who describes Barton as attending movement events as early as 1990.
By all indications David Barton is in all but name an apostle in Peter Wagner's NAR. Along with Jacobs, Wagner, Ed Silvoso and much of the NAR's top leadership, Barton shows up on the Board of Reference of TheCall, a signature organizing event of the New Apostolic Reformation, from the inception of TheCall in 2000.
ICA Apostle Sandy Grady serves in Barton's Wallbuilders organization. In 2005, Barton worked with Grady and her fellow ICA apostle Craig Lotze to write a manifesto to "declare and proclaim the Lord God Almighty as Our Supreme Judge over our courts in America" that was in turn promoted by ICA apostle and ACPE member Dutch Sheets.
In other words, what may be the most ambitious electoral initiative of the evangelical right leading up to the 2012 presidential election is well connected to C. Peter Wagner's New Apostolic Reformation.
*footnote - Leading up to The Response, the Texas Observer published a landmark story, by Forrest Wilder, on the NAR and its ties to Rick Perry. Talk To Action contributor Rachel Tabachnick appeared on Terry Gross' NPR show Fresh Air for an August 24, 2011 interview to explain the New Apostolic Reformation, and NAR mastermind C. Peter Wagner appeared on Fresh Air on October 3, 2011, to present his side of the story.