- FORT LAUDERDALE -- No matter
what happens in Iraq, and no matter what the American economy does between
now and the presidential election, Randy Bernsen will be voting for George
Bush. It will be an act of faith.
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- Religious faith will be at the heart of the presidential
election in November. About a quarter of the electorate are white evangelical
Protestants, like Mr Bernsen. They represent the most powerful single bloc
in American politics, one that is more engaged in the battle this year
than at any time since the moral majority brought out the vote for Ronald
Reagan.
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- In fact, the sense of loyalty is even deepessssssss sssssr
now. Reagan was seen as an ally. In President Bush, the evangelicals recognise
one of their own. He talks their language. Their defining belief in salvation
and redemption is personified in his decision to turn away from alcohol,
nearly 20 years ago, and be "born again" in the faith. Unlike
Reagan's secular White House, the Bush White House starts the day with
prayers and Bible meetings.
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- "I pray whoever is leading the country will be led
by God, and I believe this current administration answers to a higher calling,"
said Mr Bernsen, a well-known jazz musician living in Fort Lauderdale,
Florida.
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- "I don't wear the man's shoes, but there's enough
fruit that falls from that tree to tell me what I need to know. I believe
George Bush has surrounded himself with enough of the right people for
me to know he is a godly person."
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- Almost 80% of the country's white evangelicals support
the president - a counterweight, in terms of sheer fealty, to African-American
backing for the Democrats.
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- The support for Mr Bush appears to be virtually unanimous
among Mr Bernsen's fellow parishioners at the Calvary chapel in Fort Lauderdale,
a "mega-church" that boasts a congregation of more than 17,000.
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- Calvary's pastor, Bob Coy, has been invited to meetings
with President Bush and has been impressed.
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- "I don't think that with this administration we'll
be concerning ourselves with a Monica Lewinsky situation," said Pastor
Bob, as he is universally known. "He has restored honour to the White
House, and that morality is something I will always be proud to carry the
banner for."
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- Pastor Bob's church is a sprawling grey concrete building
which still looks like the computer assembly plant it was before it was
transformed into a place of worship.
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- The Calvary Chapel, part of a California-based evangelical
"franchise", offers its congregation a complete lifestyle. Conveniently
placed on a major road, the church has a well-equipped school, cafeteria,
bookshop and multimedia centre that produces music, videos and CDs of sermons
that are instantly available after Sunday service. There is a support centre
for people with cancer and those recently divorced - even a diving club.
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- "The bigger we get, the faster it grows," said
Rod Pearcy, who runs Calvary's media centre. "We are in the age of
the superstore, like Home Depot, Lowe's and Super Target. The reason people
go to them is there is so much more to offer. It is the same thing with
mega-churches."
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- Protestant mega-churches are spreading exponentially.
There are now 850 in America. They each have congregations of more than
2,000 and a combined total of 3 million.
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- John Vaughan, whose organisation Church Growth Today
monitors and encourages their expansion, says a new mega-church appears
in America every four days. Their success, he argues, lies in a simple
formula: "inflexible with the word of God, but flexible with their
time and space".
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- The mega-churches are transforming the religious and
political map of America. They are bucking the trend towards secularism,
taking evangelism from the declining rural south to the booming suburbs
of swing states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, where, as the 2000
election proved, every vote counts.
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- With that in mind, President Bush's meticulous election
strategist, Karl Rove, has made the evangelical vote a central plank of
his election strategy. His stated target is the 4 million evangelicals
who did not vote in 2000, which he blames for the close result.
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- In the four years since that election, the administration
has assiduously courted its Christian base. The president has backed laws
banning late-term abortions and restricting stem-cell research, and has
declared himself ready to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
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- But courting the evangelicals has also been about style.
Mr Bush regularly uses phrases that strike chords with his fundamentalist
audience. In his 2003 state of the union address, he spoke of the "wonder-working
power" of the American people, echoing a popular revivalist hymn,
There is Power in the Blood.
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- Asked by Bob Woodward, the Washington journalist, whether
he consulted his father, the first President Bush, he replied: "There
is a higher father I appeal to."
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- The Bush campaign is now calling in favours in the battleground
states. It has recruited Ralph Reed, formerly a central figure in the Christian
Coalition movement, to coordinate its work in the south-east. It sent a
mass email to evangelical pastors in Pennsylvania, asking to use their
church halls for party organising. And, according to the New York Times,
it has urged religious volunteers to turn church directories over to the
campaign, distribute guides on political issues and persuade their pastors
to hold voter registration drives, with deadlines for each task.
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- Critics of the administration have complained that this
new level of politicisation violates the separation between church and
state, and endangers the tax-exempt status of the churches.
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- Pastor Bob chafes against such restrictions, arguing
that they are seldom raised against black, liberal religious activists
such as the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
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- "I have a church and I'm supposed to have tape over
my mouth," he said. "I will go as far as I'm legally allowed
to go. We will encourage voter registration ... I can say I'm in favour
of a candidate, but I cannot tell people to vote for them.
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- "The people's voice must be heard and we are the
people."
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- Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2004 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1252945,00.html
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