Ronald Wimberley, a professor of sociology at N.C. State University, thinks he's found a more surefire way to predict people's votes.

It, too, involves religion, but not a specific denomination. Wimberley is interested in a concept some scholars call the nation's civil religion. Simply stated, it's the idea that the United States bows to a higher authority. Or, as Wimberley explained it: "There's an authority above all of us and by this authority we seek our independence."

Tell Wimberley what candidate best represents the ideals of America's civil religion and he will tell you who will win the presidency -- by a big margin. Wimberley said voters are four times as likely to prefer a presidential candidate who they perceive to uphold the values of America's civil religion -- regardless of whether those voters are religious themselves.

That's because civil religion is not the same as Christianity. It doesn't speak of Jesus. It doesn't quote Scripture. It's not concerned with doctrine. But civil religion holds that the United States was established by God to be a light unto other nations.

America's civil religion can be traced back to the Declaration of Independence, which states that people have a God-given right to freedom, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's a notion that can be found in the "one nation under God," phrase in the Pledge of Allegiance, and the "In God We Trust" motto on U.S. currency. And it's an ethos celebrated during Thanksgiving, Memorial Day and the Fourth of July.

"People might not recognize the concept," said Wimberley. "But they recognize the power of these appeals."

'God bless America'

Through the years, from George Washington to George W. Bush, presidents have invoked the shared concept of civil religion in inaugural addresses and state-of-the-union speeches. And while not all presidents have been religious in the traditional sense of attending church or praying, or even knowing the Bible, they all spoke the language of civil religion.

John F. Kennedy, the nation's only Roman Catholic president, was as comfortable using its symbols as Protestant presidents. And Ronald Reagan, who rarely went to church, understood it better than most. In his farewell address, Reagan called the United States a "shining city on a hill," and concluded his address as he always did, with "God bless the United States of America."

To be elected, candidates have to tap this national consciousness.

"At some minimal level a candidate has to associate with these ideas or they'll have a difficult time winning," said John Green, senior fellow in religion and American politics at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life in Washington, D.C.

For Wimberley, civil religion has been an interest since 1972, when he crafted his first survey ahead of the Nixon vs. McGovern presidential election. On the front and back of a legal-size sheet of paper, he listed questions and had data collectors go out to a variety of Raleigh neighborhoods -- poor and wealthy, educated and uneducated -- to knock on doors.

That first survey included statements such as, "The creation of our laws is guided by God," to which people were asked to agree or disagree. In 1984, when he repeated the survey during the Reagan-Mondale presidential contest, he followed up those questions with "Which of the two major candidates for president is closer to this belief?"

Predicting results

Wimberley didn't immediately tabulate the responses to that 1984 survey, but a few years ago, a graduate student decided to base his dissertation on the civil religion aspects of that survey. That's when the two found that voters were four times as likely to prefer Reagan over Mondale precisely because they perceived Reagan as holding a stronger version of the nation's civil religion. The study was presented last month at the Southern Sociological Society and will be published soon.

The two researchers are confident they can predict the results of the 2008 presidential elections by using the same survey.

Wimberley acknowledged civil religion may have changed somewhat since 1984. Muslims are more numerous and more politically organized than they were 20 years ago, and they may not buy in to civil-religion concepts. In addition, atheists are more vocal about their views than they once were, although Wimberley doesn't rule out the possibility that an agnostic, or even an atheist, might agree that the nation's laws are grounded in some higher moral power.

"One study never proves anything," he said. "But it's consistent with earlier research we've done on civil religion. We see no reason to doubt that it applies to this election too."