Free Republic

*Some take the surge by GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum as a convincing sign that the evangelicals are back. They tipped the scales and put George W. Bush back in the White House in 2004 and conservatives are giddy at the thought that they could have a decisive impact on the 2012 election; decisive that is for the GOP. The joy is premature. Santorum has not won a major primary in a major primary state. The Iowa, Minnesota and Missouri caucuses where arguably conservative evangelicals did help put him back on the presidential map were too narrow, limited, and skewed...

Georgia Turns Into Shaky Ground for Gingrich By TRIP GABRIEL February 18, 2012 ATLANTA — If Newt Gingrich has any hope of a comeback, it must begin here, in the state he represented for 20 years as a congressman and where the haul of delegates to the Republican National Convention is the biggest prize of the Super Tuesday contests next month. Yet when asked about the once-unthinkable possibility that he might lose the primary in Georgia, where Rick Santorum is surging just as he is nationally, Mr. Gingrich offered a shrug. “Given this kind of a year, who knows?” he...

When Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney released his federal tax returns for the past two years, he disclosed that he and his wife, Ann, gave about 10 percent of their income to their church, a well-known religious practice called tithing. In that way, the Romneys are typical Mormons, members of a church that is exceptionally serious about the Old Testament mandate to give away one-tenth of one's income. But compared to other religious Americans, the Romneys and other Mormons are fairly atypical when it comes to passing the plate. Across the rest of the religious landscape, tithing is often preached...

CNN) - It’s a greeting that always makes Mark Jobe smile: “I really loved today’s Mass, Father Mark.” Jobe is the senior pastor of New Life Community Church, which has 14 campuses across Chicago and its suburbs. He said he hears those words at least once a month, usually from newcomers - Hispanics raised in the Catholic faith who’ve started attending his non-denominational Christian church.... Hispanic Catholics tend to vote Democrat by a two-to-one margin while Evangelicals and Pentecostals are evenly split between the two parties. Hispanic evangelicals and Pentecostals tend to be more politically active than Catholics, have higher...

"This is the third [pro-life] event that he has declined to attend," says Mason. "It seems he is not interested in engaging with social conservatives, not interested in defending his apparent pro-life conversions, and not interested in courting those who are pro-life or pro-marriage -- both." [snip] Personhood USA is hosting the third conservative presidential forum in Florida on Saturday...but Newt Gingrich may be the only candidate to speak. The forum, called "Florida Awake," is co-sponsored with Liberty Counsel. Personhood USA president Keith Mason says Mitt Romney will be a no-show again. On Friday, a spokesperson for Personhood USA reported...

A new Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday reveals that evangelicals and Tea Party supporters are breaking hard for Newt Gingrich in Florida, putting the former House Speaker within two points of front-runner and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. A press release describing the poll states Gingrich "leads among white evangelical Christians 43 - 30 percent and among those who consider themselves to be tea party supporters 43 - 28 percent." Each segment makes up roughly a third of primary voters, according to Quinnipiac pollsters, "although there is substantial overlap among those two groups." Coming off the heels of his...

From Billy Graham to Sarah Palin provides an iconoclastic new history of the entrance of evangelical Christians into national American politics. Examining the key players of the “Religious Right” — Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Chuck Colson, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, and many others — D. G. Hart argues that evangelicalism is (and always has been) a bad fit with classic political conservatism. Hart shows how the uneasy alliance of these unlikely political bedfellows has contributed directly to the fragmentation of today’s conservative movement. He contends that the ongoing burden of reconciling the progressive moral idealism of religious conservatives with the...

The president of the influential Christian organisation Family Leader has said Republican candidate Mitt Romney "will not be the eventual nominee" despite leading the polls for the nomination. Bob Vander Plaats told the International Business Times UK that 75-80 percent of Republicans across the US do not want Romney. "The only reason why he is ahead is because there hasn't been a real alternative," said Plaats. "But now it looks like Gingrich is going to be that person." Plaats, who initially endorsed former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, carries significant political clout within the Republican Party. He said: "When I endorsed...

South Carolina represents the heart of the conservative movement because its Republican voters are fierce fiscal and social conservatives, which means they fervently support the Tea Party and evangelicals. These voters are now popularly referred to as “Teavangelicals” and, predictably, dominated the Palmetto State’s primary. According to exit polling from Saturday’s first-in-the-South primary, 64 percent of those who voted in the GOP primary in South Carolina supported the Tea Party and another 27 percent were neutral. Only 8 percent opposed. In addition, 65 percent of primary voters were “Born-Again or Evangelical Christian.” What happened in South Carolina is important for...

I can confirm tonight from multiple sources that phone calls are in fact occurring between Republicans in Washington and among evangelical leaders to raise money for Rick Santorum rapidly. The sources tell me that this is not for a Santorum win, though the evangelicals I spoke to continue to hope it is possible. This is to stop Newt Gingrich. One evangelical leader I spoke to said, “If Newt wins, we won’t be able to make family values an issue in the general.” One lobbyist I spoke to said, “They [the GOP leaders in DC] are really nervous about Gingrich and...

The 150 evangelical leaders who met behind closed doors on January 14 to anoint a Republican candidate for President were wise not to have invited me. I believe that Christians have an urgent duty to engage the social, economic, and moral threats to a healthy society. That requires a wide variety of political action. However, one thing it doesn't call for is playing kingmaker and powerbroker. By conspiring to throw their weight behind a single evangelical-friendly candidate, they fed the widespread perception that evangelicalism's main identifying feature is right-wing political activism focused on abortion and homosexuality. In truth, it is...

At least it was cordial. But the 150 or so "movement conservatives" gathered at Paul Pressler's this weekend (1/13-14) were a fractured lot. Maybe 10% were for Perry. Almost all of them were against Romney. Well, sort of. Caveat below. There was an official Romney guy there who explained that "You'll either work with us now or work with us later, but you'll all have to get on Mitt's train, because we have the money and the organization, so there's no stopping us." This did not go over well. It just made everyone more determined than ever to do whatever...

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- With the South Carolina Republican presidential primary a week away, former Sen. Rick Santorum on Saturday received the endorsement of 150 influential Christian conservative leaders who are hoping to prevent former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney from becoming the GOP nominee. The group, suspicious that Romney's commitment to social conservative causes such as ending legalized abortion is weak, met at a ranch outside of Houston, Texas, in hopes of rallying around one candidate rather than split their votes among three - Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The endorsement came as the Republican...

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. –Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry should drop out of the race before South Carolina’s Saturday primary, prominent conservative author Eric Metaxas said at a Sunday prayer breakfast. Mr. Metaxas said he was optimistic some of the candidates competing for the state’s conservative voters would take themselves out of contention to allow South Carolinians to coalesce around an alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. “It’s more likely that some of these wonderful men that are running will hear God’s voice and get out of the race before Saturday for the good of this country,”...

[First posted Feb. 2009,-but the pundits are still pumping out the false distortion that Republican voters are divided between foreign policy conservatives, social conservatives, and fiscal conservatives. And the media falsely painting evangelicals as only 'social conservatives'.]When it comes to politics in America the media attempts to distort reality. This was certainly the case during the Republican primary campaign and remains so.One of those media distortions was with respect to the large block of Evangelical Christian voters who overwhelmingly vote Republican.We are constantly told that conservative Republicans are divided into three camps. Foreign policy conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and social conservatives. I submit that...

The gathering of more than 100 evangelical Christian leaders and activists in rural Texas this weekend was an 11th-hour effort to unite "movement conservatives" behind a rival to Mitt Romney and demonstrate their own power within the Republican Party. Instead, it may well be a revelation of their weakness as a force within the GOP. Because if Romney still wins the South Carolina primary next weekend, this final flailing attempt to stop him will make his victory all the more important and his eventual nomination all the more inevitable. The Texas confab (at the ranch of a conservative judge and...

Will the Brenham Ranch, owned by former Judge Paul Pressler, be looked back upon as the place where the plans for a Republican coronation were upset? Will it mark the beginning of a surge of support for the candidacy of former Senator Rick Santorum for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination? It was at that ranch that 150 evangelical Protestant Christian leaders met to choose a candidate whom they could all unite behind. Speculation over the meeting, who attended it, and who would receive the nod of support from among former Governor Rick Perry, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich...

Dear fellow South Carolina evangelicals and pastors: You may find this hard to believe, but in 1947-48 I was the pastor of the Oolenoy Baptist church in Pumpkintown, S.C, thirty five miles out in the country from Greenville. It was there that I was ordained to the Gospel ministry and have been in the Lord’s work for over 64 happy years. The reason I am writing you is because as a South Carolinian, you are in a strategic position to help America at this historic time in our nation’s history. During the last three years our nation has been led...

After a two day meeting at a ranch outside of Houston a group of 150 Christian leaders, business leaders and conservative activists have coalesced behind Rick Santorum. Friday night surrogates from every GOP campaign (except that of Jon Huntsman) attended the meeting and made the case for their candidate. Saturday leaders took part in a "passionate time" of discussions about what they're looking for in a conservative leader. After three rounds of balloting Santorum emerged as the candidate leaders feel they can support. (snip) So what does this mean? Expect conservative groups to start individually motivating their constituents to work...

"After a two day meeting at a ranch outside of Houston a group of 150 Christian leaders, business leaders and conservative activists have coalesced behind Rick Santorum."

In an effort to avoid a repeat of 2008, when social conservatives failed to rally behind a single Republican presidential candidate, a group of more than 100 religious leaders who gathered in Texas this week reached a consensus to support former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum. Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, said the decision was reached after three rounds of balloting, with Santorum winning 85 votes in the final round, to Newt Gingrich’s 29. Texas Gov. Rick Perry had strong support at the beginning of the process, but was eliminated after the first round of balloting, Perkins...

Tim LaHaye​, an influential Evangelical leader and author of the best-selling Christian book series, Left Behind, and his wife Beverly, the founder of Concerned Women of America, have endorsed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Their significant endorsement may signal other Evangelicals to unite behind Gingrich in South Carolina and beyond to defeat former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in the GOP presidential primary. “Now that the Republican Presidential Primary has wound down to two front runners who can win, I would like to publicly endorse the proven conservative speaker of the House Newt Gingrich as the most qualified candidate to become...

Gannett Newspaper, Link Only: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20120108/NEWS02/301080082/Evangelicals-may-face-choice-electable-candidate-moral-one?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Mitt Romney has realized that he can't avoid the issue of his Mormon religion, so he might as well embrace it. The Republican frontrunner's new South Carolina mail campaign emphasizes Romney's deep religious beliefs and 42-year marriage, in an effort to win over 60 percent of the state's Republicans that are evangelical or "born again" Christians. The ad, however, doesn't dive head first into touting Romney's Mormonism, but instead refers heavily to his "faith" and how it will influence him as president, also assuring South Carolina voters that the White House contender is "pro-life, pro-marriage, and pro-family."

Dismayed by the prospect of Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential nominee, conservative Christian leaders are intensifying discussions about jointly backing an alternative candidate from a field reshaped by Rick Santorum’s strong performance in Iowa. The plan disclosed this week for dozens of conservative Christian leaders and political strategists to meet in Texas next Friday and Saturday, a week before the South Carolina primary, is the latest of several such efforts in the last six weeks to seek an elusive unity. Among the conveners of next week’s gathering are luminaries of the evangelical movement, including James C. Dobson, the head...

A group of "evangelical heavyweights" will be meeting in Texas on Saturday in an attempt to form a coalition of evangelical Christian support for one Republican... Reporter Paul Stanley of the Christian Post is reporting that Paul and Nancy Pressler of Brenham, Texas, have invited a group of evangelical leaders including Don Wildmon, the former chairman of the American Family Association, former presidential candidate Gary Bauer and Focus on the Family Founder James Dobson, among others, to their ranch "for the purpose of attempting to unite and come to a consensus on which Republican presidential candidate to support or which...

Evangelicals are in a civil war in Iowa. If they could unite behind a candidate, they could defeat Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in the Iowa caucuses, but they can’t. Part of the problem is that three candidates are running for evangelical support but Iowa simply isn’t big enough for the three of them. They’re splitting the vote. Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum are all making a play for the social conservatives they need to propel them onward. In 2008, sixty percent of the participants in the Iowa caucuses were evangelical. Eight days ago Rick Santorum won the...

DOWS, Iowa - He has set himself apart from the rest of the Republican field as the candidate who believes the United States should shed its role as the world’s policeman and focus instead on its internal economic problems. Representative Ron Paul of Texas says he would cut a trillion dollars out of the federal budget his first year as president, in part by ending all foreign wars and foreign aid, including to Israel. Many conservatives characterize Paul’s foreign policy stance as extremist, isolationist, and anti-Israel, calling it a weakness that caps his support. Nearly half of those polled by...

Nancy and David French...are perhaps the most visible evangelical supporters of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. They started a group called Evangelicals for Mitt... SNIP Though David and Nancy French deny it, campaign finance experts say the couple’s group looks like a thinly disguised extension of the Romney campaign. “They appear to be able to spend lots of money, but won’t say where it comes from,” says Fred Wertheimer...“It is circumstantial evidence, but it suggests this is a shell group for a Romney operation.” Indeed, what is perhaps most interesting about Evangelicals for Mitt is how apparent its links to...

Religion just got re-injected into the presidential race thanks to new ads from Rick Perry and Mitt Romney. But really, it never left. New polls in Iowa suggest Romney’s Mormon religion continues to be a sticking point among all-important evangelical Christians there. And that’s bad news for a Romney campaign that is trying desperately to prevent Newt Gingrich from scoring a big victory in the state’s caucuses. A new CNN/Time poll out Wednesday showed Romney trailing Gingrich 33 percent to 20 percent in the Hawkeye State. A look at the crosstabs suggests religion is a big reason why. Gingrich takes...

The Daily Caller quotes an evangelical leader, one Richard Land, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention: "Mr. Speaker, if you want to get large numbers of Evangelicals, particularly women, to vote for you, you must address the issue of your marital past in a way that allays the fears of Evangelical women," he wrote this week. "You must address this issue of your marital past directly and transparently and ask folks to forgive you and give you their trust and their vote." Seriously?"Evangelical" voters will either sit out next November or vote for...

The last time Pastor Robert Jeffress elbowed into the presidential race, he was warning a crowd of “values voters” about the dangers of nominating a Mormon. Jeffress, who leads the First Baptist Church in Dallas, wanted them to pick Rick Perry instead: He was an evangelical Christian who “sang the doxology,” married his childhood sweetheart, and stayed faithful (as far as anyone knows) for 29 years. Easy choice. But Republicans may not get to choose between Perry and Mitt Romney. The current front-runner in Iowa is Newt Gingrich—thrice married, an admitted adulterer, a late convert to Catholicism. He’s pulling voters...

More conventional wisdom that needs dispelling this primary season: The adulterous and thrice-married Newt Gingrich will be unable to attract evangelical voters in the first-in-the-nation caucus state. While it's true that the former House speaker ultimately may fail to achieve the redemption he's seeking from Iowa evangelicals, it's also a fact that he has been quietly building bridges to that important segment of the caucus-going electorate for more than a year. And, he not only built the bridges, he paid for them. That could turn out to be Gingrich's greatest secret weapon against his rivals in the Republican caucus in...

...They gather twice each year... Evangelical Christians and Mormons. SNIP "Our meetings are extremely cordial," said Dr. Robert L. Millet, former dean of Religious Education at BYU... SNIP 'Is Mormonism Christian?' is a very important question," writes Matt Slick of...Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. "The answer is equally important and simple. No. Mormonism is not Christian. "If you are a Mormon," Slick adds, "please realize that CARM is not trying to attack you, your character or the sincerity of your belief." For a variety of reasons that Slick explains in his paper, "the Mormon is not Christian — in spite...

An anonymous Iowa group — Iowans for Christian Leaders in Government — is circulating a letter slamming Newt Gingrich’s marital infidelities and warning Bob Vander Plaats, a top Iowa social conservative, that his group better not back the former House Speaker. Vander Plaats is perhaps the most well-known social conservative in the state, and his group plans to endorse either Gingrich, Rick Perry, Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann for president. His group’s endorsement could be key for any Republican looking to unite evangelicals, who make up a large part of the Republican base in Iowa, against Mitt Romney. The letter...

Navigate: POLITICO Ben Smith The letter from evangelical Iowa Main Content The letter from evangelical Iowa - Ben Smith: The letter from evangelical Iowa November 29, 2011 Categories: 2012 The letter from evangelical Iowa Iowa radio host Steve Deace held a focus group with some of the state’s evangelical voters on Monday night. The full show airs later today, but some of the initial analysis warrants attention: --The #1 reason why there are so many undecided voters is because nobody believes the candidates other than Mitt Romney are actually playing to win, and conservatives don't want Romney. Newt Gingrich has...

Richard Land, director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, is more skeptical, saying that Gingrich’s candidacy will be a “hard sell” for many voters. Land has been doing informal focus groups among Southern Baptists for the past two years on Gingrich’s candidacy, as he expected Gingrich to run and be a serious contender. He found that women are especially wary of Gingrich. “He’s got a gender problem,” Land says. “His toughest audience is going to be evangelical women. Evangelical men, depending on what Newt does and says, are more likely to give him the benefit of...

A new survey shows that Americans like their presidents to have faith, and a faith more or less like their own. The American Values Survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) showed that some two thirds (67 percent) of respondents said that it is either very important (39 percent) or somewhat important (28 percent) that candidates have a strong faith. But nearly one in five (19 percent) said they were less likely to vote for a candidate who had strong religious beliefs different from their own. The survey results revealed some good and bad news for the two Mormon...

Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney may face even more opposition regarding his faith if he becomes the GOP nominee, according to polls and several interviews by the Huffington Post. The staunchest opposition against Romney because of his faith came from Rev. Robert Jeffress, who is the spiritual leader for the largest church in Texas. Jeffress, a supporter of GOP contender Rick Perry, called Mormonism a “cult,” and Perry – along with many Christian conservatives – publicly rebuked him. According to new polls and information from Evangelical leaders, Christian views might change if Romney is chosen as Obama’s adversary in 2012. Rev....

This is the smear on Governor Perry this week. It was on FOX News for discussion this morning, and moments are being excerpted in an attempt to show Governor Perry as a drunkard during his speech to this evangelical conservative group in New Hampshire this past week. Among some very serious and important talk (and some Scripture), Governor Perry lightens up for some jesting. You'll see a few minutes of the light-hearted areas on TV and the internet as a "drunken Rick Perry". Make sure you see the entire 25 minute video here of his NH Cornerstone speech to see...

I challenge Evangelicals to put their interpretation of the Bible and their theology up against the acid test of what the Early Church Fathers taught. Perhaps, Evangelicalism is closer to the truth than Mormonism, but it still has a long way to go. Purpose This Web page is dedicated to the defense of Catholic doctrines within Patristic thought. The Catholic rule of faith consists of three coordinate and complementary authorities: Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the teaching Church. The Church Fathers used both Scripture and Tradition to explain and defend the Catholic faith. Corunum's mission is to present the outline...

Last week, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Karl W. Giberson and Randall J. Stephens — a physics professor and a history professor at Eastern Nazarene College — that takes evangelicals to task for being anti-intellectual, anti-reason, and anti-science. Their evidence: Evangelicals doubt man-made global warming. Evangelicals believe that gays can “pray away” their homosexuality. Evangelicals believe the earth is only thousands of years old and that men lived alongside dinosaurs. Evangelicals oppose same-sex marriage. It is worth analyzing these charges, given how often they are made. With regard to man-made global warming, the charge that all...

Perhaps hungry to assimilate into American culture, more second and third generation Hispanics raised as Catholics are finding the worship style of evangelical churches in the U.S. more to their liking and leaving the centuries old religion. Although the trend has been reported in the past, a recent National Public Radio (NPR) article points to the shift led by young Latinos as the major reason for the increasing numbers of U.S. Hispanics leaving the Catholic church. Even more specifically, a movement toward Pentecostal churches may be where the influx of Hispanics from the Catholic faith is seen most, according to...

My CNN Column: Are Evangelicals Dangerous? Monday, October 17, 2011 My column at CNN.com, “Are Evangelicals Dangerous?,” was posted there on Sunday’s front page. By mid-Monday, there were 75 pages of comments at the site. That tells us something about the volatility of the question. You can count on more debates along these lines in the media as the 2012 presidential election looms larger on the nation’s agenda. My conclusion: Above all, evangelicals are those who believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and are most concerned about telling others about Jesus. Most of America’s evangelical Christians are busy raising their...

I believe efforts to disqualify Mitt Romney as a presidential contender because of his Mormon faith are outrageous and unfair. Apparently, a lot of people in the liberal media agree with me. Unfortunately, they are hypocrites. The media are ignoring their own established religious test—against candidates whose evangelical or Catholic faith guides their political beliefs. Having momentarily discovered an appreciation for the Constitution, liberal journalists are reminding conservative Christians who question Romney’s faith that our founders prohibited a religious test as a qualification for elected office. “It was only a matter of time before some bigot drew a bead on...

WASHINGTON (RNS) White evangelicals and Tea Party members are less likely to believe in evolution and climate change than most Americans, a finding that could pose a particular problem for Republican presidential hopefuls. A new poll released Thursday (Sept. 22) also showed that a majority of Americans (57 percent) believes in evolution, and an even larger majority (69 percent) believes in climate change—though many still disagree that the phenomenon is based on human activity. But most Americans do not insist that their presidential candidates share their views on these issues, nor do they believe scientists have come to a consensus...

Erfurt, Germany - Pope Benedict XVI urged mainstream Christian denominations Friday to learn from hard-working evangelical churches which are more successful in their missionary work. 'Faced with a new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem at a loss,' Benedict said during a meeting in Erfurt, Germany with Lutheran leaders. 'This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability,' he said according to speech notes distributed by the Vatican. The meeting was held behind closed...

Andrew Sullivan is right.I thought my hand would wither when I wrote this, but I must confess he is right.There has been a spate of interesting stories in the last week about the prosperity gospel. The Guardian has a nice piece on the indictment on fraud charges by Brazilian prosecutors of the king of the prosperity gospel preachers, Bishop Edir Macedor. And writing in The Daily Beast, Andrew Sullivan’s Dish column discusses the existential mindset of the Republican Party. He offers his readers the ‘prosperity gospel’ as one explanation for its militant mood.But let us first define our terms. What...

Another day, another religious sensitivity concern, as the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks inches ever closer. While New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has decided to exclude all religion from his city’s remembrance ceremonies, in our nation’s capital the Washington National Cathedral commemoration’s organizers have decided to exclude evangelical Christianity. The Cathedral’s “A Call to Compassion” on September 11 will include a bishop, a rabbi, a Tibetan lama, a Buddhist nun, representatives of the Hindu and Jain faiths, an imam and an Islamic musician. Noticeably absent from the invitation list and “secular service” — at which President Obama will be...

The debate on the intentions of Glenn Beck and other Christian evangelicals rages on, and Dr. Gadi Eshel, a Land of Israel activist, told Arutz 7 Tuesday that while he did not believe that Beck's intentions were improper, rejecting the friendship of evangelicals could cause anti-Semitism. Eshel was responding to comments by Jerusalem City Council member Mina Fenton Monday, who voiced vociferous opposition to Beck's appearance in Jerusalem on Wednesday, saying that his rally was designed to encourage missionary activity. Eshel told Arutz 7 that Christians like Beck supported Israel because they were strong believers in the Bible, and not...