Nation: Politics from the Pulpit

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How many will follow is one of the most intriguing—and imponderable —questions of the election. Clearly the rightist preachers' potential audience is vast. Estimates vary widely, mostly according to differing definitions of who should be considered to be an evangelical. Pollster George Gallup uses a three-part definition: someone who 1) describes himself or herself as "born again"; 2) regards the Bible as the literal word of God; 3) encourages others to believe in Christ. On that basis, Gallup calculates 30 million Americans of voting age, or 19% of all U.S. adults, are members of the group.

Not all such evangelicals are political conservatives, of course. In fact, a summer Gallup poll found evangelical voters choosing Jimmy Carter over Reagan 52% to 31%. But some analysts contend that is no true measure of the rightists' impact. For one thing, the Gallup poll included blacks, whom Falwell and his allies know they have little chance of influencing. Their efforts are directed not so much to converting Carter partisans as to politicizing the huge number of evangelicals—45% by Falwell's estimate—who usually do not vote at all. Falwell claims that in the past year ministers galvanized by Moral Majority have registered 3 million new voters. The Reagan camp puts the figure closer to 2 million, but even that could be significant in a close election.

Reagan clearly believes that the rise of the evangelical right will improve his chances of cracking Carter's hold on the South and winning some key Midwestern states. To help court votes, Reagan has recruited Robert Billings, one of the organizers of Moral Majority, to be a campaign aide and envoy to Christian churchmen. Billings believes that the right-wing evangelical vote could be decisive in six states: Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Idaho and South Dakota. Says Billings: "We won't win them all, but we won't lose them all either."

Carter, in contrast, contends that the conservative evangelical vote is over-rated and is making no attempt to woo it. Explains his pollster, Pat Caddell: "Americans basically don't like mixing politics and religion, even if it's their own religion." Nonetheless, Caddell somewhat contradictorily concedes that the rise of a militantly political religious right "is an important movement, far more probably than it's purported to be." It worries some of the President's state leaders. Carter won Ohio in 1976 partly because of a heavy evangelical vote, but the rightists are now organizing. Says Jerry Austin, Carter's Ohio coordinator: "They're out there. How many I don't know. They have no track record."

Independent John Anderson has gone out of his way to defy the Christian right. He met last week with a delegation from the National Religious Broadcasters to denounce "the political marriage of the so-called Moral Majority and the New Right" as "a union which seeks to inject unbending rigidity and intolerance into church pew and polling booth alike." Said Anderson: "I don't think it is the province of the church to tell people how they should vote."