Washington / Nashville (idea) - The official leadership of President Barack Obama meets with most Protestant pastors to criticism. 61 percent disapprove of the policies of the 49-year-old Democrat, of which 47 percent are set very negative.

30 percent judged Obama positive, including 14 percent very positive. This emerges from a survey conducted by the Baptist LifeWay Institute (Nashville, Tennessee) in mid-October. Not surprisingly, are especially critical of the theologically conservative evangelical pastors, the president: 55 percent disapprove of his policies very much. In contrast, the proportion of the strong critics of Obama is less theologically liberal clergy at 34 percent. Shortly before the congressional elections on 2 November, half of Obama's four-year term of the agreement to his administration in the entire U.S. population fell to 44.7 percent, its lowest level since he on 20 January 2009 in the White House moved.

Attitude toward Obama changed little

In the past two years, the attitude of the Protestant clergy to Obama has changed little. On 30 October 2008 asked the LifeWay-election pollsters about their intentions: 20 percent would vote for the Democratic presidential candidate and 55 percent for Republican candidate John McCain. 22 percent were undecided, and said the rest are not. If half of the undecided would have voted for Obama, he would have come to similar values as in the recent survey, the President of the research department of LifeWay, Ed Stetzer.

No choice recommendation from the pulpit

The outcome of congressional elections on 2 November, the Protestant pastors to exercise much direct influence. 84 percent are opposed to recommendations from the pulpit. In the mid-term elections, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives must be redefined. In the Senate raises every two years one third of the 100 senators to vote. Currently, the Democrats have a majority in both chambers. The party of the president must reckon with losses. On the conservative side next to the Republicans also assigns the conservative group "Tea Party" to having good chances.