By Mariane Angela

Copyright dailycaller

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich warned on Fox Business Monday that the erosion of faith in the country has created a moral vacuum that fuels national instability, drug addiction, and identity confusion.

Gingrich said in his column that Charlie Kirk’s assassination proves evil thrives when society refuses to confront and defeat it. In an appearance on “Kudlow,” Gingrich traced the collapse of spiritual foundations in the West back to the French Revolution, which he described as a turning point when Enlightenment values twisted into an overtly anti-Christian crusade.

“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Gingrich told host Larry Kudlow when the host pointed out that faith is right at the center of crimes in the country. “When the French Enlightenment mutated into an anti-Christian movement and secularism in the French Revolution began to literally try to replace Western civilization, including, for example, replacing the months with revolutionary names, killing thousands of people with the guillotine,” Gingrich said. “From that point on, there has been a constant drive among Western elites that’s anti-religious, that basically seeks to center the world on human beings. So that’s exactly what God was talking about when he said you should have God before you.”

Gingrich said this spiritual void is not neutral as it often gets filled by destructive forces.

“If you think you can change who you are sexually, if you think that your appetites, your interests, your desires are at the center of life, that you get to define. You’re going down a path where there’s a vacuum where there should be an active religious soul. That vacuum very often gets filled with drugs,” Gingrich said. “The fact that we could lose 100,000 young people a year and not have a national crisis tells you that in a faith-based society where every soul matters, we would be in a frenzy to destroy the drug trade, including in China, where a large part of it comes from, including in Mexico, but also including in the United States.”

Gingrich said America’s cultural shift—from glamorizing drug use to promoting radical identity politics—has stripped the country of its spiritual foundation. (RELATED: Newt Gingrich Says Democrats Did Something Not Seen Since The 1930s)

“And we’d be serious about it. But somehow we’re told, ‘Oh, well, recreational drugs are funny. Hollywood makes movies about it. It’s really OK.’ Then you get into sexual identity politics. All of these things create a period of instability in which there’s nothing to grab. The power of faith is that you know that you are less than God,” Gingrich said. “You know that you only have salvation through faith, and you know that it’s OK to live in a world where you’re not going to be perfect, but you can find salvation anyway. You take all that away, and it becomes a nightmare and a jungle.”

A gunman assassinated Kirk on Wednesday as he addressed a large crowd of students at Utah Valley University about mass shootings. Authorities announced Friday they had arrested suspect Tyler Robinson after a 33-hour investigation.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.