ONE CONGRESS UNDER GOD LAWMAKERS HIGHLIGHT RISING DEBATE OF RELIGION IN POLITICS.

Byline: LISA FRIEDMAN Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- On a recent day in Congress, lawmakers invoked God on the floor of the House of Representatives 182 times.

The issues being debated were both substantive and symbolic: stem-cell research, the legality of the phrase ``under God'' in the Pledge of Allegiance and preserving a cross on a San Diego war memorial.

Together, they highlight the intensity with which religion has come to permeate modern American politics -- and the increasing ease with which lawmakers use religious rhetoric to energize their constituents and score election points.

``The rise of religion in politics was the biggest story of the last 30 years, and political scientists just missed it,'' said Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.

And with less than two months before the November election -- and as lawmakers look ahead to 2008 -- tensions between church and state are expected to escalate.

Pushing a ``moral values'' agenda centering on opposition to abortion and gay marriage, Republicans hope to have the same impact as in the past presidential race when evangelical Christians helped George W. Bush win the White House.

Democrats, meanwhile, are struggling to find their religious voice with a faith-based tenor on responsibility to the poor and the environment.

``The foment of 2004 is continuing and, if anything, it's more intense,'' said John C. Green, senior fellow at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

In two months of wide-ranging interviews, the Daily News spoke with eight Southern California lawmakers about their faith and its role in the positions they take in Congress.

While a handful of lawmakers -- Reps. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach; David Dreier, R-Glendora; and Linda Sanchez, D-Lakewood -- declined to discuss their personal faith, most spoke openly about the intersection of religion and politics.

Across the religious spectrum, they said they believe in God and consider themselves to have a strong religious identity -- mirroring a 2003 Harris Poll that found that 79 percent of Americans believe in God.

All also said that while they don't vote on political issues along strict religious dogma, their faith deeply influences their positions on everything from abortion to war.

``To what extent are my values shaped by my religion? I don't think when I vote on a bill I say, What does the Talmud say about this? But I do believe my religion definitely has an impact on my philosophy,'' said Rep. Howard Berman, D-Van Nuys, who is Jewish.

``You take your religion and your life experience, and that's who you are,'' said Rep. Gary Miller, R-Brea, who attends the nondenominational Calvary Chapel Golden Springs.

``I don't sit down and pray before every vote, but I do pray when I go to bed every night, and I do ask for religious guidance,'' Miller said. ``If you really have a faith, it's not something you think about. It's who you are.''

Lawmakers said religion came most heavily into play when they considered the hot-button issues of abortion and gay marriage. But they had widely varying views on the roles that religion and religious rhetoric play in public life.

GOP lawmakers, for the most part, said they believe the media has hyped the role of religion in modern politics and said they see little noteworthy about lengthy House floor discussions about God.

``I'm not sure that's bad,'' said Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks. ``Maybe we ought to have it a little more often.''

Miller said he believes religion plays a far more minor role in politics today than in previous eras.

``There are things we debate today that, from a religious perspective, they never would have talked about before,'' he said.

Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Sherman Oaks, said politics may have reached a high point of secularism in the 1990s but noted, ``When you compare this decade to almost any other decade I can name, religion has always played at least as important a role as it does today.''

Other Democrats said they think religion has permeated the political discussion like never before and accused Republicans of exploiting it as a political tool.

``I see it more now, I think, in the last election cycle and with some of the issues that are coming up in the Congress that are being supported by the evangelicals,'' said Hilda Solis, D-El Monte.

``I think Republicans spend a lot more funding and they manage to really target that population much more effectively than we have,'' she said.

Political scientists said both views hold some truth.

``Most of what's been said in this area is based on quick observation and not long-term content analysis,'' said Jim Guth, a political science professor at Furman University in South Carolina who studies religion in politics.

He noted there were no court challenges in 1954, when Congress inserted ``under God'' into the Pledge of Allegiance. And while President Bush's faith-based rhetoric is the subject of lengthy analysis, former President Franklin D. Roosevelt engaged in far more religious discussion.

``We tend to think that we noticed it, and this was yesterday, and so it must be a change from the past. That's not always the case,'' Guth said.

Green agreed, noting the intense religious involvement against slavery leading up to the Civil War, the fierce debates over Darwinism during the Scopes trial of the 1920s and the fear that when John F. Kennedy ran for president he would ``take orders'' from the pope.

The current political era, he said, isn't the most intense, but is more intense than many times. ``What's new is a division based on religiosity rather than affiliation,'' Green said.

As European ethnic groups have assimilated into American society, many of the religious divisions that once defined them -- and by extension, their political identities -- also have dissolved, Green said.

In its place, analysts agreed, is a division between two larger groups: those of Judeo-Christian denominations who are religious, and those who are not.

At the same time, social and cultural issues that cut to the core of many religious beliefs -- such as abortion and gay marriage -- have soared to the top of the political agenda.

``Instead of having a division between religious traditions, what you tend to have is a difference between people who have a more traditional religiosity, whether they are Catholics or Protestants or Jews, and people who have less religiosity,'' Green said.

``As best as we can tell, this division between religiosity and secularity has never happened (before),'' he said.

Mark Silk, head of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion at Trinity College, called it a pluralism of people of faith.

When it comes to faith-based outreach, Silk said, ``the George W. Bush view of the world is `us against them,' -- but the `us' is fairly inclusive.''

While the impact the issue will have at the polls this fall remains to be seen, some are predicting that its influence will eventually wane.

``This intensity will continue, certainly through 2008,'' Green said. ``But if history is any guide, it will (go away) eventually. And it could just be because people are tired of fighting.''

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