Part of what led to my conversion is the first time we [he and 3rd wife, Callista] went to St. Peter's together. It's St. Peter's. I mean, you stand there and you think, this is where St. Peter was crucified. This is where Paul preached. You think to yourself, two thousand years ago the apostles set out to create a worldwide movement by witnessing to the historic truth they had experienced. And there it is....
Um, yeah. I've spoken many times of this kind of nostalgic, Romantic medievalism. But I'm struck by his evocation of the Gothic (no surprise, really) and a "pre-modern" devotion to the cross. Not really sure what that means. I do know, however, that Newt's no dummy so he probably has thought about it before he said it. Is he thinking of the Man of sorrows and late medieval devotional literature? Is he thinking about Francis of Assisi? Or is he thinking about Carolingian devotion to the cross? Is he thinking of power and vengeance? Is his "pre-modern" devotion to the cross linked in some way to the more "overt Christianity" he now professes, a more aggressive religio pushing outwards against non-believers? Dunno the answers to these. I hope someone will ask Newt though.The moment that finally convinced me [to convert] was when Benedict XVI came here [to the United States] and Callista in the church choir sang for him at the vespers service and all the bishops in the country were there. As a spouse, I got to sit in the upper church and I very briefly saw [Benedict] and I was just struck with how happy he was and how fundamentally different he was from the news media's portrait of him. This guy's not a Rottweiler. He's a very loving, engaged, happy person....
And part of me is inherently medieval. I resonate to Gothic churches and the sense of the cross in a way that is really pre-modern.
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Personally, I think it's because medieval kings were often able to get marriages dispensed with quite easily.
Or maybe it's the whole theocratic government/divine right of kings idea he finds so appealing. I didn't realise until recently that he's a former history professor.
Interesting points. On the subject of 'nostalgic, Romantic medievalism' I can understand how, as a scholar, you might get a little irritated with the idealization of the Middle Ages by those who don't understand it's history as deeply as you do.
Nonetheless, I think I understand where Mr. Gingrich is coming from. I think a lot of this has to do with a desire for cultural clarity among people who have been torn away from their own deep cultural roots. As Americans, many of our ancestors traded in their traditional cultures to become White. What they gained in political power, freedom and economic opportunity, they lost in language, culture and tradition.
The fact of the matter is that the 'high culture' of the Middle Ages is ravishingly beautiful, even if our peasant ancestors weren't fortunate enough to partake, except possibly at church.
On another level, maybe the Middle Ages represents a time when Man's relationship with wildness and nature was less trammeled than it is today....
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