Dr. CASEY: For the first time, the Republican Party turned to evangelicals and said, "For religious reasons you need to vote for us and against John Kennedy, because if a Catholic becomes president, you're going to lose religious freedom, which we hold so dear."

SEVERSON: The raucous counterculture of the 1960s, from rock 'n' roll to sexual liberation, offended evangelicals, as did the Supreme Court decisions banning prayer in public school and legalizing abortion.

Rep. SOUDER: I believe that the fundamental change in America was the legalization of abortion.

SEVERSON: The 1976 campaign of Jimmy Carter, a fellow evangelical, encouraged evangelicals to get even more involved in politics. But it was the next president who galvanized evangelicals.

Dr. RIBUFFO: The person who deserves credit, without question, for forming the alliance between theological conservative Protestants, evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Republican conservatives, without question, is Ronald Reagan. And it starts in '79 and '80. In '84, you already have evangelicals and fundamentalists as solidly Republican.

SEVERSON: Evangelicals supported the first President Bush, and even a third of them voted for fellow evangelical Bill Clinton, although many voted against him. But perhaps no president has reached out as convincingly as George W. Bush.

Dr. JACK GRAHAM (President, Southern Baptist Convention, Introducing President Bush):

George Bush is a Methodist, but he's a thoroughgoing evangelical Christian. And I'm grateful for his life of prayer and his faith and his testimony for Christ.

Dr. CASEY: If you look at how President Bush reached out to evangelicals in the 2000 race, when he talked about values in mainstream media, he used a much softer kind of rhetoric. He talked not about abortion, not about being against gay marriage per se, but he spoke in a milder code to signal that he knew evangelicals. He walked their walk, he talked their talk.

SEVERSON: He pushed faith-based programs, appointments of evangelicals in high places, the ban on partial-birth abortions -- and under pressure from evangelicals, funding to prevent and treat AIDS. The list goes on.

Ms. COATS: When George Bush became president, I felt that was a great change for integrity and the moral part of the country.

Mr. KINZER: I think President Bush is doing a good job and I like his consistency.

SEVERSON: Some observers have suggested that one reason President Bush and Britain's Prime Minister Blair have gotten along so well is because both are evangelical Christians.

The war in Iraq had strong support from evangelicals, but Professor Shaun Casey says it is not unwavering support.

Dr. CASEY: A lot of evangelicals supported the war, thinking our troops were going to be welcomed as liberators when they came into Baghdad -- and here we are a year later. The war is getting worse. So there is some ambivalence there.

SEVERSON: Even Congressman Souder, who still supports the decision to go to war, may be running out of patience.

Rep. SOUDER: If the Iraqi people don't take over more of the law enforcement and make us do the fighting and dying, I won't support them for more than another year.

SEVERSON: Some say it's with the Bush administration's foreign policy that evangelicals have been particularly influential -- pushing for a harder line on human rights with China, North Korea, the Sudan, and especially to stand squarely behind Israel.

Rep. SOUDER: They're God's chosen people. And he gave, in the Old Testament, Israel to the Jews, more or less, right or wrong. And I'm going to stand with Israel.

Dr. CAMPOLO: There are some evangelicals who buy into these LEFT BEHIND books that are now the rage of the day, that suggest that Jesus can't return to Earth unless all the Arab peoples are driven out and the temple is rebuilt, which has of course no biblical basis whatsoever. I contend that Bush would be a lot more moderate if there weren't some fundamentalists breathing down his neck.

SEVERSON: In the past, it's been the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons who often motivated evangelicals to vote, but times are changing.

Dr. RIBUFFO: Many evangelicals are skeptical of polarizing figures like Falwell or Robertson. But there's still a grassroots fundamentalist evangelical culture out there that has a strong conservative tilt.

SEVERSON: Evangelical Tony Campolo says the conservative tilt toward explosive moral issues has come at the expense of what should be evangelicals' main concern -- serving the poor.

Dr. CAMPOLO: I think that many evangelicals have re-created God in the image of a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Republican. And they end up worshipping a God that is an incarnation of their own values. The reason why I buy into the Democratic Party more than the Republican Party is because there are over 2,000 verses of Scripture that deal with responding to the needs of the poor. Note: 2,000 verses.

SEVERSON: Souder disagrees that evangelicals aren't actively involved in helping the poor. This is a gathering of Ft. Wayne evangelical leaders who have contributed service and money to help the inner city's needy. But Souder agrees that caring for the poor will likely not be the rallying cause that gets evangelicals out to vote in 2004.

Rep. SOUDER: I agree that at times conservative Republicans will find things that work to their purposes to activate the conservative religious voter.

SEVERSON: Historian Ribuffo says the Republicans have a lock on the evangelical vote this year.

Dr. RIBUFFO: I can't see anything that would change that in the foreseeable future, short of some extraordinary disaster such as the Great Depression.

SEVERSON: But Shaun Casey says Democrats shouldn't write off evangelical voters, because some may be losing faith in the current president.

Dr. CASEY: There has been no progress on abortion. Washington still remains as deeply divided on a partisan basis as anytime in memory, and the economy has not improved. They have felt the disappearance of jobs. They have felt the decline in manufacturing. There is a significant percentage of evangelicals who are now willing to take a look at the other guy in a way that three years ago was probably not conceivable.

SEVERSON: According to our survey, George W. Bush would draw more than two-thirds of the white evangelical vote if the election were held today.

For RELIGION & ETHICS NEWSWEEKLY, I'm Lucky Severson.