WASHINGTON (ABP) -- Barack Obama's election as president could signal waning influence by the Christian Right in American politics, according to several experts -- but his improvements over previous Democratic nominees’ appeal to religious voters could also simply be a variation on an old pattern.

Panels of religious and polling experts, in two separate Nov. 5 conference calls with reporters, noted that Obama had improved on both John Kerry’s and Al Gore’s performance in most categories of religious voters.

Barack Obama (photo courtesy Obama-Biden campaign)

The Democratic nominee garnered about 53 percent of the popular vote to GOP nominee John McCain’s 46 percent.

Green noted that Obama improved slightly but significantly on John Kerry’s performance in every major religious category. The 2004 Democratic nominee lost white evangelicals by huge margins -- and Catholics by a narrower margin -- to President Bush.

But Obama did better among evangelicals and won a majority of Catholics. He also scored significant increases in support from Jews, Protestants in general and those not affiliated with any religion.

Among white voters who identified themselves to exit pollsters as evangelical or “born-again” Christians, 26 percent voted for Obama and 73 percent voted for McCain. That’s a 5-point improvement over Kerry’s performance among white evangelicals.

However, Obama did significantly better among white evangelicals in Midwestern and Rust Belt states than he did in the South. For instance, in Alabama, only 8 percent of white evangelicals supported Obama, whereas in Iowa, 33 percent did.

Nationwide, Obama won a significant majority -- 54 percent -- of Catholics. That was a demographic in which Bush bested Kerry 52-47 percent in 2004, giving Obama a 7-point boost among Catholics.

Obama’s biggest boost in terms of religious categories over previous Democrats came among those who are not formally affiliated with any religious group. Those listing no religious affiliation favored him over McCain 75-23 percent. That’s an increase of 8 points over Kerry’s showing among the unaffiliated -- and an increase of 14 points over 2000 Democratic nominee Al Gore’s 61-percent share of the same category.

Obama also did better than Kerry among all religious categories in terms of attendance at worship services. His biggest increase was among those who worship more than once a week, 43 percent of whom voted for him. That was an 8-point gain over Kerry’s 2004 share of frequent worshipers. The Pew experts said much of that increase may owe to Obama’s strong support among African-American Protestants and Latino Catholics.

A separate panel of moderate-to-progressive religious leaders, assembled by the advocacy group Faith in Public Life, said the trends indicate many religious voters are moving away from traditional religious-conservative political leanings.

David Gushee, professor of Christian ethics at Mercer University in Atlanta, said the election revealed a "fracture" between the Christian Right and the general public. Whether that fracture is permanent, he said, depends a great deal on whether the Religious Right positions itself as "flat-out opposition" to a Democrat-controlled Washington or tries to build coalitions aimed at achieving goals for the common good.

Rich Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said the Religious Right has treated politics as a "zero-sum game," where in order for them to win someone else had to lose.

But Cizik said "a spiritual renaissance" is underway, in which evangelicals are learning to achieve goals through cooperation instead of control. "We have learned as evangelicals how to collaborate with those with whom we disagree," he said. "Don't put the evangelicals out of this picture at all," Cizik said. "We are standing ready to work with him [Obama] on things we can work together on."

Gushee, who also writes a regular opinion column for Associated Baptist Press, said attempts by the Religious Right to make the election about abortion and gay marriage apparently failed, with very few voters citing those issues as important in determining their votes.

Also, Gushee added, "apocalyptic" communiqués from Religious Right leaders in the final weeks of the campaign predicting a nightmarish scenario unfolding as the result of an Obama presidency seemed to bear little fruit.

Gushee said the Religious Right is losing ground particularly among younger evangelicals, who want to expand the "values voter" agenda beyond the traditional issues of religious conservatives -- abortion rights and gay rights -- to include broader concerns like poverty, human rights and climate change.

"I think there is perhaps a shift in the religious landscape and political landscape that may be a long-term shift," Gushee said.

"I think with the generational change it's hard to imagine that the Religious Right will ever have more power in the Republican Party or the nation than it had in 2004," he added. "I think it's in decline, so it's up to them what they're going to be -- whether they're going to broaden the agenda and come to the center."

Gushee said he believes that abortion "remains a primary obstacle" for many evangelicals who otherwise would have voted for Obama but just "couldn't get over the hump" on the issue. He said it is too early to predict whether an "abortion-reduction strategy" as an alternative to attempting to overturn Roe v. Wade will win over conservative evangelicals.

Robert Jones, president of Public Religion Research, called the five-point gain by Democrats a "very important shift" for a group that traditionally votes Republican indicating a "religious rebalancing" and "diversification of the evangelical vote."

But the Pew Forum’s Green was more cautious in analyzing the results, saying it could be the beginning of a trend -- or simply a return to normalcy.

“Some of this may be returning evangelicals to the previous level of support [for Democrats] before George Bush,” Green said, noting Bush’s appeal to evangelicals as someone who spoke their language well and identified with their religious experience.

Whatever the case, he said, the so-called “God gap” between the parties in appeal to the most religious of voters persists, despite Obama’s gains among them.

“It really doesn’t look to me like a realignment,” Green said. “We may seem some realignment in the future depending on the Obama presidency.”

He added that Obama’s “biggest gains were among groups that were already Democratic. And although he did make gains among groups that are Republican ... he didn’t change the overall pattern of the groups."

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