DALLAS - Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders on Monday shook up their flock by issuing their strongest statement to date on the potential perils of climate change and the need to take action on the issue.

The statement, which was signed by SBC President Frank Page, past presidents and other church leaders, was short on specifics but represents a significant departure from the group’s past pronouncements on the issue, which have urged caution and not much else.

Monday’s statement by some of the leaders of the 16 million-member SBC — America’s largest Protestant Church and one of its most conservative — said such caution could be taken as “uncaring, reckless and ill-informed.”

If the membership at large accepts the document, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee John McCain could stand to gain as he has broken ranks with much of his party by highlighting the issue of global warming and talking about “common sense” ways to limit carbon emissions, such as promoting advanced energy technologies.

Having the SBC on the side on climate change could give McCain some needed traction with conservative evangelicals who have not warmed to him because of his failure to adopt their strident positions on a range of social issues from gay marriage to stem-cell research.

The SBC statement also is another step in closing the divisions between the old culture warriors of the religious right and the so-called “evangelical center,” which sees a broader Biblical agenda that includes issues such as combating poverty and environmental degradation.

The statement was not entirely unexpected since many conservative evangelicals are known for their passion for the outdoors. A comprehensive nationwide survey in 2006 of licensed hunters and anglers commissioned by the National Wildlife Federation found that half of those polled identified themselves as evangelical Christian.

Hunters and anglers often are the first to note changes in the climate or environment.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage.
-Photo credit: Reuters/Larry Downing (SBC President Dr. Frank Page, second from left, meets with President Bush in the White House’s Oval Office in 2006 with Dr. Morris Chapman, left, president of the SBC Executive Committee, and Chapman’s wife, Dayle, right.

DALLAS - Another exit poll has uncovered more evangelical Democrats and indicates that their agenda seems to be moving beyond the “God, Guns and Gays” focus of the Religious Right’s old culture warriors.

An exit poll commisioned after Ohio’s Tuesday primary by Faith in Public Life, the Center for American Progress Action Fund and Sojourners asked both Republicans and Democrats if they were evangelical or born-again Christian. Almost all other polls have only asked this of Republican primary voters as this group is widely regarded as a key base for the GOP.

The poll, conducted by Zogby International, found that 43 percent of white evangelical Ohio primary voters took part in the Democratic primary and 57 percent in the Republican one.

Other national polls still show over 60 percent of white evangelicals firmly in the Republican camp but analysts have said they do not expect them to play quite the same role in this November’s election as they did in the 2004 White House race, when by some estimates  around 78 percent of those who cast ballots did so for President George W. Bush.

The Tuesday poll also found that 42 percent of Ohio’s white evangelical voters ranked jobs and the economy as the most important issue area in deciding how to vote versus 14 percent who ranked abortion and same-sex marriage as the most important issue.

Such a finding may not be surprising in a Rust Belt state like Ohio, which has been shedding manufacturing and other jobs.  But the poll also found that 54 percent of white evangelical primary voters surveyed wanted a broader agenda such as ending poverty and protecting the environment.

The poll had a fairly wide margin of error of 5 percentage points.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

DALLAS - Former White House hopeful Mike Huckabee endorsed Sen. John McCain as he dropped out of the Republican presidential race on Tuesday night. But the million-dollar question is: will his network of evangelical supporters follow his lead?

Evangelicals not only lean heavily Republican, they are also among the party’s most energetic activists and Huckabee tapped networks that any GOP candidate could use in a close race.

The Huckabee machine included “homeschoolers” who volunteered for him in droves. The energy of those conservative Christians — who as their name suggests educate their children at home in part to shield them from the secular world — would be welcomed by the McCain camp.

Young conservative bloggers formed another part of Team Huckabee, getting the word out to Christian circles when he was still a relative unknown, and it will be of interest to see where this chattering class now tilts. 

As the Republican field narrowed, McCain picked up a larger share of the evangelical vote in the state-by-state nomination battles suggesting that he already has made inroads with this group.

But conservative Christian heavyweights such as James Dobson, founder and chairman of the advocacy group Focus on the Family, has already said that he won’t vote for McCain because of his support for stem-cell research and other positions that are beyond the Religious Right’s pale.

One thing is certain: this is an area that will be keenly watched. 

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/John Gress

DALLAS - America’s evangelical movement is still growing and winning converts — with political implications that will likely be felt in this election cycle and beyond.

A new and extensive survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life released on Monday found that 26.3 percent of U.S. adults or one in four count themselves as evangelical Protestant.

That is higher than the widely cited one-in-five figure which is based on what denominations report to the National Council of Churches USA (NCC). But surveys and polls such as the one conducted by Pew can also catch people affiliated with churches that don’t report to the NCC.

Pew’s “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey”, based on interviews with more than 35,000 Americans age 18 and older, also shows that evangelicals outnumber Catholics who accounted for 23.9 percent of the survey’s respondents.

“The evangelical Protestant tradition is still growing but also becoming more diverse … so it may give them more clout in politics but because of their diversity it not be used in the same way,” John Green, a senior fellow at the Pew Forum, told journalists during a conference call about the survey.

White evangelical Protestants have emerged in the past three decades as a key base of support for the Republican Party, which has galvanized them to go to the polls by taking hardline stances against abortion rights and gay marriage.

But as Green and others have noted, they may in fact be splintering politically and moderating as their ranks grow –  perhaps because they are attracting more people with different priorities.

Having said that, all the available evidence to date suggests that most remain firmly in the Republican camp, even if the movement’s agenda is widening to embrace other Biblical concerns such as the environment.

Pew plans to follow up in the spring with a report on other findings from the survey which will look specifically at Americans’ religious beliefs and practices as well as their social and political views.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Brian Snyder

DALLAS - James Dobson, the influential founder of the conservative, evangelical advocacy group Focus on the Family, has delivered a blow to John McCain — by saying he won’t vote for him if he’s the Republican presidential nominee.

“I am convinced Sen. McCain is not a conservative, and in fact, has gone out of his way to stick his thumb in the eyes of those who are … I cannot, and will not, vote for Sen. John McCain, as a matter of conscience,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.

“I believe this general election will offer the worst choices for president in my lifetime. I certainly can’t vote for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama based on their virulently anti-family policy positions. If these are the nominees in November, I simply will not cast a ballot for president for the first time in my life,” he said.

Dobson said he was just expressing his views as a private citizen — but many of his millions of followers in the evangelical community, who listen to his radio show and read his books, will take it as a signal to do the same.

Dobson previously had said he would do the same if former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani became the Republican nominee. There was even talk among conservatives inside Dobson’s inner circle of supporting a third party candidate if Giuliani, who has since dropped out, carried the Republican crown.

Giuliani’s support for abortion and gay rights made him anathema in the eyes of conservative Christians, a key Republican base.

McCain has long opposed abortion rights. But Dobson said McCain’s failure to support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage and his support for embryonic stem-cell research among other things were beyond the Christian conservative pale.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young

DALLAS - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s continued presence in the Republican presidential race has kept the white evangelical vote divided, according to a new poll by the Pew Research Center.

Its latest national survey, conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 2 among 1,502 adults, found that Arizona Sen. John McCain now holds a substantial lead among all segments of the Republican electorate — with the notable exception of white evangelical Protestants.

McCain and Huckabee’s support among the voters in this key Republican base was divided evenly at 34 percent a piece.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, whose Mormon faith is viewed by many evangelicals as a heretical cult, had 17 percent of the support among these voters.

But both McCain and Romney has seven-point gains from the previous month with this group of voters as other candidates dropped out while Huckabee’s support remained stagnant at 34 percent.

This suggests that if Huckabee’s campaign fades, evangelicals are already starting to look to either McCain or Romney to be their political saviours.

Huckabee is an ordained Baptist preacher who has connected well with this conservative constituency, which is stridently opposed to abortion rights and gay marriage and has become one of the Republican Party’s most reliable bastions of support.

The Pew survey has a margin of error of plus/minus three percentage points.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Robert Galbraith (Huckabee at debate in California.)

DALLAS - Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson’s departure from the Republican presidential race has left the National Right to Life Coalition (NRLC), one of America’s leading anti-abortion rights organizations, wthout a candidate that has its seal of approval.

The group endorsed Thompson in November but says no decision has been made about whether to make another endorsement.

“We know what we don’t want. But we’re not sure if we are going to endorse at this point before the primaries are over,” the group’s political director Karen Cross told Reuters.

The group’s “nay list” is unsurprising all of the major Democratic candidates plus former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose support for abortion rights sets him apart from the rest of the socially conservative Republican field.

Cross said among the Republicans former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Arizona Senator John McCain were “all running as pro-life candidates” — implying that if one of them gets their party’s nomination he will almost certainly get the NRLC’s backing.

Abortion is a divisive issue in America and those who are most staunchly opposed to it tend to be religious conservatives — evangelical Protestant and Catholic but also Mormon, Jewish and other faiths.

The Democratic Party’s plank backs abortion rights while opposition to them is a key Republican plank — though many fiscal conservatives within the GOP are uncomfortable with that stance.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

- Photo credit: Reuters/Kevin Lamarque (Placards left in front of the Supreme Court after a march marking the 35th anniversary of the landmark Roe v. Wade decision backing abortion rights.)

U.S. evangelicals are more concerned about the slumping economy and cleaning up government than they are about so-called hot button social issues such as abortion, according to a new online poll by Beliefnet, a religious news service.

The survey of 980 self-described “evangelical born again” Christians between Jan. 17-23 also found about 41 percent of the respondents identified themselves as Republican and about 30 percent as Democratic.

White evangelical Protestants are regarded as a key Republican base which helped secure President George W. Bush two White House terms, partly because issues such as abortion and gay marriage galvanized them to go to the polls. Bush picked up as much as 80 percent of the votes cast by this group.

The Beliefnet poll found that 85 percent of evangelicals ranked the economy and “cleaning up government ” as the most important or very important issues. By contrast, about 61 percent gave these rankings to ending abortion and 49 percent to halting gay marriage.

However, the poll was not entirely scientific, it was promoted on Beliefnet’s Web site and through its newsletters. Respondents weren’t alerted that this was a poll of evangelicals, but Beliefnet culled these responses only from those who said they were “evangelical or born again.”

Still, the survey is the latest piece of evidence to suggest that U.S. evangelicals have political concerns which go far beyond divisive cultural issues.

Religion plays a big role in politics in America, where levels of belief and regular worship are far higher than they are in Europe. Evangelicals, who tend to take their religion very seriously, number about 60 million or one fifth of the U.S. population.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

– Photo credit: Reuters/Chip East

DALLAS - The Family Research Council (FRC), an influential conservative lobby group with strong evangelical ties, has issued a “Values Voter Guide For 2008 Presidential Candidates.”

Self-styled “values voters” are religiously motivated social conservatives — usually evangelical Protestants or conservative Catholics – who cast their ballots for candidates sharing their moral outlook such as opposition to abortion rights and gay marriage.

These voters are a key base for the Republican Party and, while groups such as the FRC do not endorse specific candidates, conservative Republicans tend to be the main beneficiaries of their activism.

Distribution of voters’ guides, detailing the positions of candidates on key issues such as stem cell research, are a core activity for such groups.

The FRC’s presidential voting guide, issued late on Thursday, says it has “drilled down on the issues important to the family.”

Among other things, it asks whether candidates “support Medicaid-funded abortions,” what form of stem cell research they would allow federal funding for, and whether they would support a constitutional amendment “to define and protect marriage as the union of one man and one woman.”

It says Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton supports Medicaid-funded abortions and opposes a constitutional amendment that would effectively bar gay marriage.

Former Arkansas Governor and Republican candidate Mike Huckabee — the emerging favorite of religious conservatives — would, according to the FRC voter guide, “veto any bill to provide federal civil rights protection on the basis of sexual orientation.”

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage

– Photo credit (top): Reuters/Rebecca Cook. Mike Huckabee, a favorite of religious conservatives, campaigns in Warren, Michigan, Jan 15

– Photo credit (bottom): Reuters/Phil Klein. Hillary Clinton, a former first lady, speaks at the University of California Santa Barbara, Jan 17

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee was their champ in Iowa, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney did well with them in Michigan, and the latest Pew poll shows Huckabee in a narrow lead for their affection ahead of a fourth rival Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Conservative evangelicals, a key Republican base, have still not quite unified around one single presidential candidate — leaving the party’s White House nomination up for grabs.

The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center, which involved the polling of over 1,500 adults from Jan. 9-13, found that among conservative evangelical Republicans, Huckabee had the edge with 33 percent versus 25 percent for McCain. Romney was fourth with just 12 percent.

But in Michigan where Romney — a native son to the state – had a thumping victory on Tuesday night, some exit polls suggested he even edged ahead of Huckabee, who came in third overall,  for their support.

Huckabee’s victory in Iowa was largely attributed to his connection with evangelicals there — but that was a state where many voters got to see the candidates in person and so was tailor-made for the Baptist preacher’s  folksy style, which goes down well with the church-going crowd.

In Michigan, the poor economy there seemed to perhaps weigh most heavily with evangelicals whom some conservative activists have dubbed “values voters.”

What do all of these polls suggest?

“I would say this suggests that Huckabee still has work to do,” said the Pew’s Scott Keeter.

“McCain is regarded as a very conservative candidate. The evangelicals, while they do value the religious dimension they share with Huckabee, have a  social conservatism that is very consistent with McCain’s on the issue of abortion. He’s not out of step with them on a range of issues,” he said.

McCain’s Vietnam war-hero status and tough-guy talk and experience in areas of national security also resonate with many evangelicals — and he has the lead in most polls of South Carolina, which holds a crucial “first-in-the-South” Republican primary on Saturday.

But count on Huckabee to make a big bid for the substantial evangelical vote there.

Click here for more Reuters 2008 campaign coverage. 

– Photo credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst (Romney campaigning in South Carolina), Rebecca Cook (Huckabee during a campaign stop in Michigan on Tuesday).