BUCHANAN'S BULLY PULPIT\GOP candidate strikes positive chord among the religious right.

Byline: Diana Hochstedt Butler

PAT BUCHANAN'S strong second-place showing in the Iowa caucuses proves that religious conservatives are the largest and best-organized voting bloc in the Republican party - and probably in the nation.

Before Iowa, political pundits dismissed the Christian Coalition as too divided to significantly affect last Monday's results. According to the media, no single candidate had captured the religious right's heart.

Wrong.

In the caucuses, 33 percent of the voters identified themselves as members of the religious right. Nearly 70 percent of them voted for Buchanan.

Why Buchanan? What about his message appeals to religious conservatives? Stumping through Iowa, Buchanan preached "a new idea in Republican politics - a new, spirited conservatism of the heart."

Buchanan's politics of the heart resonates with evangelical piety. In the 18th century, evangelical Protestantism emerged as "the religion of the heart." The heart, rather than the head, guided faith and Christian compassion.

The media continues to misunderstand this aspect of the religious right.

Before the caucus, some commentators insisted that many Christian Coalition voters would support Bob Dole on pragmatic grounds.

"He's the only Republican who can win," one stated, "if they want to share power, Christian conservatives will vote for him."

Voting for Dole seemed the sensible thing to do.

But evangelical politics isn't based in what politicos understand as sense. Iowa's religious right ignored conventional wisdom.

Buchanan wooed and won religious conservatives.

Buchanan speaks to four issues dear to evangelical hearts: pro-life politics, protectionism, patriotism and purity.

Pro-life politics continues to be the major litmus test for the religious right. Among their deepest heart-felt beliefs: abortion is murder and must be stopped.

Protectionism also speaks to the evangelical heart. Embattled religious conservatives blame American decline on unfair foreign competition.

Foreign success threatens working-class families - the cradle of American values and Christian piety. Not simply xenophobia, protectionism is "home protectionism" - economic policies guarding the Christian hearth from invaders.

Patriotism is dear to the religious right's heart. For them, America is a Christian nation, God's chosen people, who, freed from sin's slavery, lead the entire world to a millennium of peace, justice and righteousness.

Purity signifies the heart transformed. Redeemed individuals must be morally pure and free from conscious sin - especially sexual sin.

But the nation as well must purify itself from sexual license and moral corruption.

For Christian conservatives, pro-life politics, protectionism, patriotism and purity weave together creating a complete worldview knit together by one central concern: the heart converted by Jesus' love.

It doesn't make much sense to the secular media but it does to the religious right.

Such issues are not new in American politics. In the 19th century, evangelical Protestants formed an unofficial religious establishment.

Pro-life politics resembles the abolitionist cause. Protectionism recalls anti-Catholic nativism. Patriotism reacts religious manifest destiny. Purity redeems the nation.

Buchanan's politics of the heart speaks right to America's evangelical soul.

For conservative evangelicals and Catholics, Buchanan is the true believer. In 1992, he blasted the Republican presidential convention, warning of a culture war - a holy war between the forces of moral believers and sinful infidels. Many Americans cringed, but religious conservatives loved it.

It is, as Buchanan puts it, "a cause larger than all of us." In their hearts, they know they are in the right and that God is on their side.

The media often depicts the religious right as slightly naive dupes used by skilled politicians to further larger, and more secular, political agendas.

Iowa proves otherwise. The religious right used the media and politicians to send their message. In America's political holy war, the Christian Coalition is here to stay.

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Photo (Color) The new gospel GOP presidential candidate Pat Buchanan preaches a "spirited conservatism of the heart." Associated Press