Conservative Christians Deliver the American Presidency

  

It Could Have Easily Gone the Other Way

 By David B. Hall

 

 

Baptists in America once again could claim to have been THE deciding factor in determining the Presidency. It does seem amazing, President Bush winning in light of:

• one of the most powerful campaigns ever waged against an incumbent,
• with SO much money spent,
• with so much going wrong in Iraq,
• the prison scandals,
• the growing wounded and dead in Iraq,
• the barrage of media suggesting a poor economy and declining employment,
• the hurricanes hurting employment surveys,
• with public opinion overseas, especially in Europe, 
• and perhaps more than all the above put together, a mainstream media clearly overtly and repeatedly aiding the opposition,

And yet Bush won.

 

“Southern Baptists” are only one portion of the Baptist vote in America, and Baptists are only one portion of the evangelical Christian vote. But the Southern Baptists alone have over 37,000 congregations scattered across all 50 states, and they can easily claim to be the largest religious body in America – apart from the Catholics. 

 

Bobby Welch, the newly elected Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) president, recently made a “whirlwind evangelical bus tour of all 50 states”.  That didn’t hurt the Bush moral agenda. Welch mixed politics with his message throughout the tour, with statements like:

 

[Henry] Kissinger said if Americans don't pursue terrorists abroad, the terrorists will follow them home and kill them here. The same is true with the church and the devil. Christians must be on the offense if they are to have any chance of winning the fight.

 

Relatively recent previous American elections that were tipped by the Baptist vote include: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan (twice) and Bill Clinton (twice).  Both Carter and Clinton were Southern Baptists. And Reagan, though a conservative Presbyterian, did well with the Baptist vote.  Seems to me if the Democrats really want to get back in the White House they ought to be looking for another Baptist from the South – or at least someone with moral standards more in line with biblical values.

 

Baptists were not the only group to make such a difference in the Bush victory, it could also be said that Catholics delivered the American Presidency.  Despite Senator John Kerry being a Catholic, the truth is, more Catholics voted for Bush than Kerry. Leonard Leo, Catholic adviser to the Bush-Cheney campaign, says "Catholics voted for President Bush over Senator Kerry by 51 to 48. That is a 4 percent gain over 2000. Among regular Mass-attending Catholics, President Bush garnered 55% of votes.  The gain in Catholic support (4 points) doubled the gain in the Protestant vote (2 points)."

 

And Both Hispanic Christians and Black American Christians could make similar claims.  Both groups historically are predominantly democrats.  Exit polls credited moral issues with boosting President Bush's tally among black and Hispanic voters. The president's share of the Hispanic vote increased from 31 percent in 2000 to 44 percent this year. The shift in the black vote was smaller - from 9 percent four years ago to 11 percent in 2004.  But the Black Christian vote may have been the decisive factor in Ohio, the state that ultimately tipped the election to Mr. Bush, where Bush got 16% of the Black vote.

 

If any one of these groups (Baptists, Catholics, Hispanic Christians, Black American Christians) would have voted differently, the election results would have been reversed. And in fact the election was so close (51 to 48%) that any number of smaller voting blocks could have made the difference.

 

Perhaps prayer made the biggest difference. 

• About one million people all across Africa were praying for this election
• Another million Christians in India were praying hard for this American election
• There were many in non-free countries who also were praying.
• Then there was the prayer of multitudes of American Christians.
• Numerous churches in America had special prayer services with
• many groups fasting up to 40 days in advance of the election.

Keep in mind that in the past many evangelical Christians prayed but didn’t vote. For some reason the scripture that says "Faith without works is dead" hadn't connected with their need to vote. This time a significantly larger share put their prayers with some action and showed up at the polls. Thank God!  Perhaps we in New Zealand - and other countries - could learn some of these lessons too?

 

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David B. Hall is an American who has lived in New Zealand the past eight years with his wife Lydia and their two (grown) children: Jonathan and Leilani.  A graduate of Vanguard University of Southern California (in bible and sociology) David is the director of Across Pacific & Asia ministries. David also hosts a web page (www.across.co.nz) that averages over 500 visitors each day.