LANCASTER, Ohio — Evangelical Christians, the fastest-growing faith-based group in the US which played a pivotal role in tilting the scales in President George W. Bush's favor in the last presidential election, are increasing bringing religion into politics.
"I appreciate the fact that the church is politically involved," said Kyle Hatfield, a 30-year-old father of two who believes the separation of church and state has gone too far.
"It was not our forefathers' intention to prevent churches from being involved," he told Reuters.
Lisa Sexton, 42, a Bible school volunteer, agreed.
"Christians stepped back too far. I prayed in school but my kids can't pray in school," she said.
"I should have spoken up earlier."
In a March survey, a quarter of the resident of Ohio, a key swing state that narrowly decided Bush's election victory in 2004 over Democrat John Kerry, said they were evangelicals, believing that a strict adherence to the Bible and personal commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ will bring salvation.
More than 82 percent of them said they approve of bringing more religion into politics.
Increasingly Republicans
Evangelical Christians have had a growing impact on America's political landscape, in part because adherents believe conservative Christian values should have a place in politics -- and they support politicians who agree with them.
Senior pastor Russell Johnson is chairman of the Ohio Restoration Project, a faith-based group that wants to increase the role of religion in public life.
He and his supportive members believe that evangelicals and Republicans are wedded to a set of beliefs and share common grounds on issues like the Iraq war and revolutionary theory.
"I trust his [Bush] opinion because of his beliefs," said Sexton, adding that she liked Bush because he was born-again Christian.
Political analyst John Green, director of the University of Akron's Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, cited an increasing support for the Republicans among evangelicals.
"Evangelical Protestants have become much more Republican in recent times, although 40 or 50 years ago more of them were Democrats," he said.
"There was a particular intensification of evangelical links to the Republican Party during the Bush administration in 2000 and 2004."
An Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Friday, July 14, showed that Republicans are in jeopardy of losing their grip on Congress in the midterm elections in November.
The poll found that Americans by an almost 3-to-1 margin hold the GOP-controlled Congress in low regard and profess a desire to see Democrats wrest control after a dozen years of Republican rule.
http://islamonline.net/English/News/2006-07/17/02.shtml