Evangelical Christians may not have been natural supporters of John McCain, but the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency is much scarier.

To wit: Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, sent an e-mail to students titled “Why Faithful Evangelicals Cannot Vote for Barack Obama,” reports Yonat Shimron.

The answer, in a word, is abortion.

The e-mail includes an editorial by Princeton University professor Robert P. George which describes Obama as “the most extreme pro-abortion candidate ever to seek the office of President of the United States.”

Evangelicals aren’t the only ones concerned about abortion. North Carolina’s two Roman Catholic bishops sent out a joint e-mail saying much the same thing without citing any candidate by name.

In his preface to the editorial, Akin wrote, "It is incumbent upon every believer... to vote their conscience and to further let their conscience be guided by the Word of God. Nowhere is this more important than in the area of abortion, an issue on which God’s word is abundantly clear.”

Many evangelicals fear an Obama presidency will further forestall the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case that made abortion legal.

Read more after the jump.

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