Suzanne Goldenberg talks to evangelical groups in Colorado Springs

guardian.co.uk

As the words to the Christian rock song fade from the giant screens at Mountain Springs church, Pastor Steve Holt steps forward to speak to his congregation. These are perilous times, he says, but he urges them not to despair.

"There are still two weeks before the election," he says, before announcing a week of fasting and prayer in the run-up to polling day.

For conservative Christians, such as Holt and his congregation, the prospect of a Democratic victory represents sheer calamity. Yet Evangelicals have not been natural supporters of John McCain, doubting the Republican's commitment to banning abortion and gay marriage.

But conservative Christians believe a Barack Obama presidency would roll back a generation of political gains which culminated with their privileged position in George Bush's White House.

"I don't think we are going to have any influence with Barack Obama in the White House," Holt told the Guardian.

The election represented a paradigm shift for the US as well as for evangelicals. "I think there is a backlash against Bush because of the economy and I think frankly because of a lack of leadership," Holt said. "There is a sense we are in a position of weakness right now."

A political forum at the church saw bewilderment and frustration among members of Holt's flock as they tried to come to terms with Obama's widening lead over McCain - and the potential loss of their power in Washington.

"Has Obama through mass hypnosis figured out a way to bypass the critical faculties of all Americans?" asked Brian Sherman, a church volunteer.

Mark Andre, a commodities trader, said he had not started out a supporter of McCain - though the senator was well liked by his Democratic friends before the campaign. "It's almost like Democrats became hateful of McCain. Has it been Sarah Palin and her stance, or is it just Obama and his ideology? What happened to all the Democrats who loved McCain?"

Political soul-searching is under way at conservative churches across the US - but nowhere more so than Colorado Springs, a town known locally as the "evangelical mecca".

Local government officials lured conservative Christian groups here with tax breaks in the 1980s. Colorado Springs is now headquarters for the most powerful Christian organisations in the US.

The town and surrounding areas remain defiantly conservative in a state that has been leaning Democratic in state elections for the last four years since voting Bush in 2000 and 2004. John Morris, the chairman of the county Democratic party, called the town "a black hole of Republican extremism".

Colorado is now emerging as a key battleground state, and Republicans are counting on the evangelicals to help McCain hang on. The party has sent emissaries to 400 churches over the past few days to recruit volunteers for "evangelical-to-evangelical" phone banks. It has also used the churches to generate excitement about Palin's rally schedule yesterday, handing out tickets after morning services on Sunday.

In an ordinary election that grassroots organisation would make a difference. Evangelicals consider it a "Christian duty" to vote. Past elections have seen high turnouts among conservative voters - especially if there were ballots on gay marriage or abortion.

In an attempt to bring out the faithful this year conservatives in Colorado drafted a ballot measure that confers human rights on a fertilised egg from the moment of conception.

Church leaders have also tried to impress on their followers that - even if they are still cool towards McCain - conservatives cannot afford to have Obama in the White House.

But with election officials predicting unprecedented turnout across Colorado - up to 90% in heavily Democratic Denver and Boulder -the tested Republican strategy of winning elections by getting out the evangelical vote is unlikely to work. That vote would be simply swamped by a very high turnout.

There are also signs that evangelical power over the ballot box could be waning - even in Colorado Springs.

Recent years have seen more Democrats in the area. There have also been signs of an internal revolt against local conservative Republican politicians.

Over the years, the influx of evangelicals to Colorado Springs shifted the local party establishment to the right. Party politics increasingly revolved around the emotive issues such as abortion. That alienated more traditional Republicans who wanted their officials to focus on the economy and infrastructure.

Last month, Jan Martin, a lifelong Republican and an elected city council official, announced she was supporting Obama because she believed the party had moved too far to the right.

"I think Bush has been too extreme, and he has catered to this black-and-white extreme view of conservative Christian thinking. The leadership of the local party is still very conservative and still very much us against them."

A number of evangelical leaders have also begun asking whether their movement has drifted too far to the right. Some church leaders in Colorado Springs have called for the evangelical focus to be broadened beyond abortion and gay marriage and address issues such as climate change and poverty.

Few are willing to publicly write off McCain and the current brand of Republicanism. But in the political forum at Mountain Springs, local Republican elected officials were already discussing how they would operate under an Obama administration.

"God forbid, but if it comes about we are going to have to be speaking out like never before," said Doug Lamborn, the local Republican member of Congress.

Republicans needed to update their methods of communications by launching more conservative blogs, added Amy Stephens, a local state representative.

Holt was also now moving to reconcile himself to defeat. "This could be the best thing that ever happened to the evangelical cause," he said. "We're used to being against the tide."