BOB ABERNETHY: As the presidential election season gets into full swing this coming week with the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, several church-state issues are in the news. The Christian Coalition won a round this week in its ongoing battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the proper boundaries between religion and politics. A federal judge ordered the IRS to refund $169.29 in taxes paid by the coalition in 1990. At issue was whether the coalition qualified for religious tax-exempt status. Last year, the IRS ruled that some coalition projects were partisan politicking and, therefore, not tax exempt.

Another church-state issue -- an old, familiar one -- has resurfaced in politics in Kansas, where campaigns for next Tuesday's primary elections reflect that state's new argument over teaching evolution in the schools. Should it be evolution alone or evolution and creationism? Who should decide? Our reporter is Judy Valente.

JUDY VALENTE: The normally obscure race for state board of education is getting the most attention here in Kansas and around the country.

Unidentified Woman: All in favor of the amendment, raise your hand please.

VALENTE: The reason? In a controversial vote last year, the state board decided to deemphasize the theory of evolution, allowing local school districts to make the teaching of evolution optional and opening the door to the teaching of creation theories.

Ms. LINDA HOLLOWAY (Republican Incumbent): We didn't ban the teaching of evolution. We've never -- that was never the intent of anybody, nor is it true today. Evolution was being presented as a fact, and we wanted children to have the opportunity to investigate.

VALENTE: Linda Holloway was president of the board at the time of the vote and is now in a tight race for reelection. She is a publicly avowed conservative Christian. Her church displays her campaign signs. Evangelical Christian churches are expected to play a pivotal role in the primary. Many observers see the vote as a referendum on the strength of conservative Christians to promote a political agenda. The election has given rise to challengers, all eager to show their own religious credentials, running as pro-evolution candidates. Ron Patton, a Presbyterian minister, is among them.

Mr. RON PATTON (Democratic Candidate): Kansas education has been thrust back at least a century by the decision [of] the state board of education regarding creation stories being -- faith-based stories being equivalent with science-based theory.

Ms. SUE GAMBLE (Republican Candidate): Our kids need a good, strong basic education, and that basic education includes evolution and the geologic time line and the age of the Earth and the age of the universe and the Big Bang theory. It includes all of that.

VALENTE: The issue goes far beyond Kansas. It gets to the fundamental questions of how the world began, what was the origin of life, and how should the schools handle the question of God. Nearly all scientists and science textbooks affirm Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. They say the evidence is overwhelming that higher forms of life evolved from lower forms over billions of years through a series of natural changes.

Professor MARY ASHLEY (Professor of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois): To ask me what the evidence for evolution is is analogous to asking an electrical engineer what the evidence for electricity is. To me, the evidence for evolution is just overwhelming and comes from all areas of biology and geology. We have -- from paleontology, we have the fossil record that shows a progression of life forms through time. That's indisputable.

VALENTE: Creationists recognize the role of a supreme being. Some of them take the creation story in Genesis literally. They believe the Earth is only several thousand years old and that God created life in the forms it has now. Other creationists accept evolution, but insist God set the process in motion and that it has continued over time, as God intended. Still others believe that nature and human beings are far too complex to be the result of random events in the natural world. Evolution, they say, doesn't explain human creativity or consciousness. They argue the universe is the work of an intelligent agent, the theory of intelligent design.