I see quite a few have taken exception with the word “redemption”. I don’t know if these complaints are lodged just to be outraged about the religiosity of the word, despite the appropriateness of its use, or if you truly think I was being literal in only the spiritual sense.

If it is the latter, I can assure you that I am using the word redemption specifically because it has more than one meaning. Most common, especially from a Christian like myself, redemption is all about the spiritual, and I don’t mind if you don’t buy that part. Redemption also means to reclaim something of value.

Most of us are looking for that second kind of redemption politically, in our economics, in our personal finances, and some are also looking for it after having had divorces.

I won’t go through and defend the things Newt has done, and I probably won’t defend the things he does in the future, but I don’t begrudge any man who becomes the champion of his own fate and chooses to go on a journey of redemption. It’s what America is made of.

Fundamentally.

Whether you are talking about the pilgrims who journeyed across the Atlantic, the patriots who took up arms to secure the ideals of the Enlightenment for their posterity, the freed slave, or the immigrant who saw, and continues to see, America as the last best hope; all of them were/are taking part in a journey to reclaim something of value – Freedom. Their pursuit of freedom and the opportunities that come with it, are – at their core – journeys of redemption, and something that most Americans instinctively understand and respect.

Aaron B. Gardner