04 July 2004	Sunday	15 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

NO matter what happens in Iraq, and no matter what the American economy does between now and the presidential election, Randy Bernsen will be voting for George Bush. It will be an act of faith.

Religious faith will be at the heart of the presidential election in November. About a quarter of the electorate are white evangelical Protestants, like Mr Bernsen. They represent the most powerful single bloc in American politics, one that is more engaged in the battle this year than at any time since the moral majority brought out the vote for Ronald Reagan.

In fact, the sense of loyalty is even deeper now. Reagan was seen as an ally. In President Bush, the evangelicals recognize one of their own. He talks their language. Their defining belief in salvation and redemption is personified in his decision to turn away from alcohol, nearly 20 years ago, and be 'born again' in the faith. Unlike Reagan's secular White House, the Bush White House starts the day with prayers and Bible meetings.

"I pray whoever is leading the country will be led by God, and I believe this current administration answers to a higher calling," said Mr Bernsen, a well-known jazz musician living in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

"I don't wear the man's shoes, but there's enough fruit that falls from that tree to tell me what I need to know. I believe George Bush has surrounded himself with enough of the right people for me to know he is a godly person."

Almost 80 per cent of the country's white evangelicals support the president - a counterweight, in terms of sheer fealty, to African-American backing for the Democrats.

The support for Mr Bush appears to be virtually unanimous among Mr Bernsen's fellow parishioners at the Calvary chapel in Fort Lauderdale, a 'mega-church' that boasts a congregation of more than 17,000.

Calvary's pastor, Bob Coy, has been invited to meetings with President Bush and has been impressed.

"I don't think that with this administration we'll be concerning ourselves with a Monica Lewinsky situation," said Pastor Bob, as he is universally known. "He has restored honour to the White House, and that morality is something I will always be proud to carry the banner for."

Pastor Bob's church is a sprawling grey concrete building which still looks like the computer assembly plant it was before it was transformed into a place of worship.

The Calvary Chapel, part of a California-based evangelical 'franchise', offers its congregation a complete lifestyle. Conveniently placed on a major road, the church has a well- equipped school, cafeteria, bookshop and multimedia centre that produces music, videos and CDs of sermons that are instantly available after Sunday service. There is a support centre for people with cancer and those recently divorced - even a diving club.

"The bigger we get, the faster it grows," said Rod Pearcy, who runs Calvary's media centre. "We are in the age of the superstore, like Home Depot, Lowe's and Super Target. The reason people go to them is there is so much more to offer. It is the same thing with mega-churches."

Protestant mega-churches are spreading exponentially. There are now 850 in America. They each have congregations of more than 2,000 and a combined total of three million.

John Vaughan, whose organisation Church Growth Today monitors and encourages their expansion, says a new mega-church appears in America every four days. Their success, he argues, lies in a simple formula: "inflexible with the word of God, but flexible with their time and space".

The mega-churches are transforming the religious and political map of America. They are bucking the trend towards secularism, taking evangelism from the declining rural south to the booming suburbs of swing states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida, where, as the 2000 election proved, every vote counts.

With that in mind, President Bush's meticulous election strategist, Karl Rove, has made the evangelical vote a central plank of his election strategy. His target is the 4 million evangelicals who did not vote in 2000, which he blames for the close result.-Dawn/The Guardian News Service.