Dispatches from Lancaster
Getting out the vote in a conservative Christian country

By Deborah Caldwell
From Beliefnet.com

12:30 p.m. Mount Hope United Methodist Church, Ephrata, Pa.

When Republican committeewoman Anna Mae Ressler arrived at the polling place here off a busy two-lane highway at 6:30 a.m., a line of voters was already snaking around the church.

"We've been hitting the election really hard at church," Ressler said, describing the voter guides and church bulletin announcements she'd helped provide her congregation. Indeed, the local GOP also provided two conservative Christian voter guides to people walking into the precinct to vote on Tuesday...Ressler says the fervor is definitely there. As she made phone calls to remind local Republicans to vote, she prayed with them over the election's outcome, hoping for a Bush win. If he does win reelection, Ressler said, God has "answered our prayers and given us another chance."

And if Kerry wins? To prepare for that possibility, Ressler has been reading the Book of Jeremiah. "When that nation got so bad, the Lord sent them into captivity," she explained. "We've done an awful lot of things in this country that are displeasing to God."

Kerry, she says, will be a punishment to the nation.

1:15 p.m. Dove Christian Fellowship, Ephrata, Pa.

Dove Christian Fellowship sits down the road from an Agway outlet and Martin's Country Store and across from a strip shopping mall on the edge of a rolling expanse of farmland.

Here, Diana Sheehan kept a solitary vigil as part of a round-the-clock prayer session for the election sponsored by the church. She paced back and forth, Bible in hand, in the fourth-grade classroom, praying for "a godly man to be elected to office. We're praying for the future of this country. And we're praying that it's an honest election."

Sheehan had a dream five years ago that jolted her to political awareness. It included an ostrich with its head in the sand, a lion advancing against it, an American flag in the background, and a letter that read: "America, this is a wakeup call." She believes the ostrich represents American Christians, who've "turned our backs on what is going on in politics in this nation."

For the last four months, Sheehan's been leading a weekly prayer group whose sole task is to pray about the election. And in the last 40 days, she's participated in a no-sugar fast sponsored by Intercessors for America, which is encouraging millions of conservative Christians to do the same.

If the prayer and fasting work, she says, Bush will be reelected, and God will signal that "he's giving us more time to get our act together. I think this nation is going down the tubes very quickly."

If Kerry wins? "I don't know what that means," she said, drawing in her breath. "I'll be praying a whole lot more because I think it's a spiritual battle."

Two Nations Under God

By Thomas L. Friedman
Published: November 4, 2004

Well, as Grandma used to say, at least I still have my health. ... I often begin writing columns by interviewing myself. I did that yesterday, asking myself this: Why didn't I feel totally depressed after George H. W. Bush defeated Michael Dukakis, or even when George W. Bush defeated Al Gore? Why did I wake up feeling deeply troubled yesterday?

Answer: whatever differences I felt with the elder Bush were over what was the right policy. There was much he ultimately did that I ended up admiring. And when George W. Bush was elected four years ago on a platform of compassionate conservatism, after running from the middle, I assumed the same would be true with him. (Wrong.) But what troubled me yesterday was my feeling that this election was tipped because of an outpouring of support for George Bush by people who don't just favor different policies than I do-they favor a whole different kind of America. We don't just disagree on what America should be doing; we disagree on what America is.

Readings of November 7, 2004