Mark Oppenheimer asks, “Why are American politicians always switching religions?”:

But it’s not just that Americans don’t mind a politician who switches religion: It almost seems as if we like it when they do. In that way, it’s natural to wonder whether the two converts of the day, Gingrich and Obama, were actually motivated by a particular electoral strategy. If your mind had a cynical bent, you might ask whether they found religion simply in order to make themselves more electable. But the more interesting question may be how we can gauge the authenticity of any politician’s conversion at all.

American politicians switch religions because they’re contemporary Americans. Americans like it, or at least tolerate it, because they can relate. According to a 2009 Pew study:

Americans change religious affiliation early and often. In total, about half of American adults have changed religious affiliation at least once during their lives. Most people who change their religion leave their childhood faith before age 24, and many of those who change religion do so more than once.

Why did Gingrich convert to Catholicism? Surely because he married his mistress, who is Catholic, and who takes her faith seriously (or, to be blunt, more seriously these days than she did when she took up with the married Gingrich). That’s not to say that Gingrich’s is not a genuine faith. Many people convert to the church or religion of a spouse, and sometimes it happens that the convert becomes as enthusiastic as his or her spouse, and even more so. It could well be, as Oppenheimer says, that some politicians convert because they perceive it to be politically advantageous. This, he suggests, might explain why a rising black Chicago politician named Barack Obama, who had not before been religious, hooked up with a megachurch frequented by black Chicago elites. But really, who can know what’s in a man’s soul?

Still, this is a fair point from Oppenheimer’s piece, coming at the end of a discussion about how Mitt Romney, by being true to the faith in which he was raised, is increasingly out of touch with the country he seeks to lead:

Romney is known for changing his mind, but he has had two fewer wives, and two fewer religions, than Newt Gingrich. So who’s the flip-flopper?