By Ed Stoddard Reuters Sat Nov 4, 8:34 AM ET
DALLAS - America's churches are still sharply divided on the war in Iraq as their flocks prepare to go to the polls, although backing for the conflict has dimmed even among the once solidly supportive evangelical community.
Public opposition to the war -- polls show a solid majority of more than 60 percent of Americans opposed -- is seen as a major reason President George W. Bush's Republican Party is battling to retain control of the U.S. Congress in Tuesday's elections.
And with far higher church attendance rates in the United States than in other parts of the rich industrialized world church stances on the war, as on other issues, loom large in politics.
Among mainstream Protestant denominations, leaders of the United Methodist Church have been vocal in their criticism of Iraq.
"As general secretary of the United Methodist General Board of Church & Society, I have continued to speak against the war in Iraq," said Jim Winkler, who also heads the church's social justice and public policy wing.
"It is my opinion that religious-based antiwar activities have been essential to turning the tide of opinion in the United States against the stupid and ill-conceived invasion of Iraq," he told Reuters by e-mail.
Many African-American churches have also come out in opposition to the war, and the message is heard loudly in countless services every Sunday.
"I think that the contempt of many of the churches regarding the conflict is because there were no weapons of mass destruction discovered," said Pastor Robert Earl Houston Sr. of the Westwood Baptist Church in Nashville, Tennessee.
"And I think that after 9/11 we went after the wrong people," he told Reuters by telephone, referring to the September 11 attacks, and to the administration's pre-war stance that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.
Black church opposition may also have roots in the high exposure of African-
American families and communities to the war. African-Americans make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population, but according to the U.S. Defense Department, they account for around 18 percent of military personnel.
Pacifism runs deep in other U.S. churches, such as the Quakers, Mennonites and Anabaptists.
EVANGELICAL SUPPORT
On the other side of the divide are the largely white evangelical Protestants, who have been a bedrock of support for the Republican Party.
Evangelicals also are reeling from a scandal after Ted Haggard resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and admitted on Friday that he bought the drug methamphetamine and sought a massage from a gay male prostitute. He denied using the drug or having sex with the man.
Many conservative evangelical Christians view the Iraq conflict as it is presented by the administration -- as an essential part of the war on terrorism declared by Washington after the September 11 attacks.
"If people see we are taking the war to the terrorists instead of fighting it on U.S. soil, then there is more support for it (among social conservatives)," Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, a conservative lobby group with strong evangelical ties, told Reuters.
Other conservative Christians go far beyond the administration view, with a stance that sees the Iraq war and war on terrorism as part of a "clash of civilizations" or unfolding Biblical prophecy.
"The present day events in the Holy Land may very well serve as a prelude or forerunner to the future Battle of Armageddon and the glorious return of Jesus Christ," Jerry Falwell, head of the Moral Majority Coalition and a supporter of the war, said recently in a newsletter on his Web site.
But although as a group they remain more committed to the conflict than most Americans, there are signs that socially conservative evangelicals' support for the war is flagging.
A poll published last week by the Pew Research Center found that 58 percent of white evangelical Protestants surveyed felt the United States made the right decision in using force in Iraq to oust Saddam Hussein, below the 71 percent in a previous poll in September.
"As the war has drawn on and the price has gotten higher we begin to ask questions that we didn't 2 or 3 years ago. Like 'is this a just war?"' said Gary Ledbetter, director of communications for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.
(Additional reporting by Michael Conlon in Chicago)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061104/pl_nm/usa_elections_churches_dc
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