The New Nation - Internet Edition

Agencies, Washington

In the U.S. presidential race, where voters stand depends on where they sit, particularly on Sunday morning.

The Reverend Dwight Jones, 60, senior pastor at the First Baptist Church of South Richmond, Virginia, asked ushers to pass out voter-registration forms in addition to collection plates, emphasizing the momentous nature of the campaign.

"If you know anyone who's not registered, get them signed up, your friends and your enemies," Jones said. "This is a historic election."

His black congregation, he said, doesn't view Christianity through single issues.

"We believe the whole Bible, and it's about more than abortion and gay marriage," Jones said. "We want to know a politician's stance on the living wage, fairness to all people, tax breaks for the middle class and not just the wealthy, standing up against the death penalty."

That represents one side of a cultural divide in America that analysts believe could tip the election.

The other can be seen nearly 300 miles away at a mostly white evangelical church in Charlotte, North Carolina. Pastor Mark Harris's members are energized by the choice of Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate precisely because she so strongly opposes abortion. "Republicans were waiting for something to get excited for, and Sarah Palin is it," he said.

'Most Segregated Hour'

Forty-five years ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. called 11 a.m. Sunday "the most segregated hour in this nation." If some views expressed in these two churches are an indication, that's still in many ways the case.

Tens of millions of Americans attend church each week, and studies show the overwhelming majority attend services where members are almost entirely of the same race. They also hear the messages of candidates in a different way, and that has strong implications for the presidential race.

That's because both Obama and McCain are heavily counting on each group to win-blacks for Obama, the first African-American presidential nominee for a major party, and conservative white evangelicals for McCain.

For Jones, Jesus's teachings on social justice are central to his mission. He's a member of the Virginia state legislature, is running for mayor of Richmond, and has endorsed Obama-though never from the pulpit.

Harris said he also doesn't endorse candidates from the pulpit. Rather, at the First Baptist Church of Charlotte he preaches a world view that is "Christ-centered" and his congregation "will vote for candidates who support those views."

The views of the two churches underscored a deep cultural divide even among Americans with the common bond of attending Sunday services.

Burges Burrows, a self-described conservative Christian, hadn't been able to summon much enthusiasm for McCain. The choice of Palin, however, made him an instant supporter-even though he'd never heard of her before McCain picked her.

"It's her beliefs as a Christian and the choices she has had to make," said Burrows, 47. Those choices included giving birth to a baby with Down syndrome, Burrows said.

Some 26 percent of Americans identify themselves as Protestant evangelicals, who are overwhelmingly white, while 6.9 percent belong to historically black churches, according to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

While they are united in calling themselves Christians, their votes break down along racial lines: In 2004, President George W. Bush carried 78 percent of the vote of those who called themselves conservative Christians, while Democrat John Kerry won almost 91 percent of black votes.

The divide is especially sharp in a year that pits Obama, 47, against the McCain-Palin ticket, with Palin changing the dynamic for McCain with her appeal to religious conservatives.