Support for Israel becomes a top issue for Iowa evangelicals key to the first Republican caucuses

Steve Rowland peered beneath the brim of his baseball cap and admonished the roughly 500 people at Rising Sun Church of Christ in the Des Moines suburb of Altoona. It had been three days since Hamas attacked Israel and killed hundreds of civilians. In Iowa, where evangelical Christians dominate the first-in-the-nation Republican presidential caucuses, Rowland and other pastors are delivering a message meant to resonate both biblically and politically.