Pulpit Politics

By LAURENCE I. BARRETT WASHINGTON

The Rev. Louis Sheldon, wearing the badges and buttons of an alternate delegate from California, took time out from convention proceedings to recall his brief fling with the Democrats. He met Jimmy Carter in 1976 while serving as the pastor of a Charismatic church in Anaheim. "He was the first professing evangelical Christian ((candidate)) in my time," Sheldon said. "His religious bent seemed to rise above the campaign." So Sheldon switched parties and became a Democrat, introduced Carter to other ministers and attended a White House reception when Carter took office. A disillusioned Sheldon soon rejoined the G.O.P. however, because "I could not support an Administration that had the facade of evangelical rhetoric but not the reality of evangelical principles. I'm home to stay."

George Bush's chances in November depend heavily on whether Sheldon proves to be a weather vane for one of the country's most important voting blocs. Millions of white evangelicals returned to their roots to elect Carter 16 years ago. They changed allegiance again in 1980, helping to give Ronald Reagan and Bush large majorities. This year there is some wavering among the faithful. One reason is mild disappointment with Bush. Another is Bill Clinton's and Al Gore's status as churchgoing Southern Baptists. If Clinton and Gore convert their religious ties into enough votes, the Democrats can be politically born again in the South and a few pivotal states elsewhere.

No way, said Sheldon, who has become a religious-right activist as head of the Traditional Values Coalition. He has plenty of company among clergymen -- even those who shun direct political involvement. Floyd Smith, pastor of West Virginia's Hedgesville Baptist Church, also rues his one Carter ballot: . "To vote for a person just because he's born again is a mistake I won't make a second time." Smith wants a President "who will fight for our rights" against pro-choice feminists, atheists, gay-rights activists and others who threaten his brand of morality. "We're getting it shoved up our noses," Smith complained. He cares little if help comes from an Episcopalian like Bush or a Presbyterian like Dan Quayle.

To protect their evangelical support, the Republicans must stoke the anger of people like Smith. To woo evangelicals, the Democrats must convince them that Clinton and Gore are not only moderate but better able than their rivals to deal with the real problems of the middle class. The stakes in this religious tug-of-war are high: the Southern Baptist Convention alone boasts 15 million members. Four years ago, the white evangelical vote was nearly 20% of the electorate.

The G.O.P. got a boost in Houston from prominent televangelists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Even before he took the podium for a prime-time speech that accused Clinton of hatching "a radical plan to destroy the traditional family," Robertson revved up ultraconservatives outside the convention hall. At a Houston rally, young zealots distributed handbills denouncing "queers" and "feminazis" as Robertson berated the Democrats for failing to mention God in their platform.

The New Right alliance that emerged between religious and secular conservatives in the late 1970s helped Reagan attract two-thirds of the white evangelical vote, the same proportion Carter had won in 1980. Some 70% voted for Bush four years ago, giving him a lock on the South, where white Protestants are the dominant voting bloc, and strengthening him in important Northern states like Illinois and Michigan.

Yet Bush does not have an undisputed claim to evangelical support this year. Spokesmen for the Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant group, complain that the President is squishy on certain issues. In particular, they disdain his reluctance to hammer gay-rights activism as some other Republicans do. Richard Land, head of the group's Christian Life Commission, warns that "it will take clear differences on values to get Southern Baptists to vote against two people of their own denomination. If you want to energize Southern Baptists, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how."

One way the White House has been doing that is with its education policy. The Republican proposal -- loudly trumpeted during the Houston convention -- would provide government aid to middle-income and poor families who want to send children to private schools, including church institutions. Clinton's program is limited to public schools. Quayle and Robertson charged last week that Clinton is beholden to the teachers' unions, which rank high in conservative demonology because they ostensibly peddle "humanism" in classrooms.

Quayle, in fact, has been far ahead of his patron in appealing to evangelical concerns. He first launched his assault on the "cultural elite" nearly a year ago in a little-noted speech to Robertson's Christian Coalition, a group contending for control of G.O.P. organizations in several states. He elaborated on that theme, and attracted more attention, at the Southern Baptists' annual meeting in June. Lately Bush has also been singing from the same hymnal -- albeit in gentler tones. In July he appeared on Robertson's TV show, where he dutifully pledged allegiance to most items on the religious right's agenda. He also agreed to attend a national gathering of religious conservatives in Dallas two days after the convention.

Clinton, for his part, turned down an invitation to the Dallas meeting. Having promised to appoint pro-choice jurists and to extend civil rights protection to homosexuals, he knows he cannot expect to pass the religious right's moral checkup. Still, Clinton hopes to recapture a respectable number of rank-and-file evangelicals, some of whom are more moderate than their leaders. Baptist Press, a news service for the Southern Baptist Convention's newspapers, last month distributed a long story describing the Clintons' and Gores' religious practices. While the candidates did not come across as quite the Sunday school teacher Carter was, they were depicted as committed churchgoers.

Marc Nuttle, who managed Robertson's failed 1988 presidential bid, thinks it was no accident that Clinton last year adopted the term New Covenant as a campaign slogan. "That's an evocative phrase for Christians," Nuttle says, "as Clinton knows." The Arkansan's long association with evangelicals appeals to some conservatives who nonetheless disagree with his positions. Anthony Mangan, a Pentecostal pastor in Alexandria, Louisiana, met Clinton at a Bible camp meeting eight years ago and has admired him since because "Bill is such a genuine, full-of-love person. He loves the Lord with everything in him." Still, because of Clinton's stands on abortion and homosexual issues, Mangan doesn't know what he'll do on Election Day. "I have to pray hard on it," he says.

For the moment, Clinton can live with that kind of uncertainty. If his religion wins him more of a hearing than Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale got, he can try to shift the concerns of evangelical voters to more practical, kitchen-table questions. Says campaign manager David Wilhelm: "Plenty of Baptists know that the real family issue is how families can make ends meet."

Robison James, a religion professor at the Baptist-affiliated University of Richmond, thinks that at least some in his denomination are losing their pro- Republican fire out of frustration; the Reagan-Bush era, after all, did not re-create society in their image. Thus James predicts that Clinton could get close to half the white evangelical vote, rather than the 30% Dukakis won. If so, Clinton may be combing the New Testament for tidbits appropriate for an Inaugural Address.