Cornfield Convocation: In a state where the majority of Republican voters are evangelical Christians, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz will find out tonight whether God answers his prayers, or if He too has become enamored with the bluster of Donald Trump. Iowa voters meet tonight in their political caucuses to cast their vote in the first major event of the 2016 presidential election.

Religion has been the running mate for Republicans. Cruz has said, “Any president who doesn’t begin every day on his knees isn’t fit to be commander in chief of this country.” Yesterday at a campaign stop he urged his supporters to “awaken the body of Christ that we may pull back from the abyss.”

Marco Rubio, who’s been Catholic, Mormon, Baptist, and Catholic again, said in a campaign ad, “Our goal is eternity … the ability to live alongside our creator for all time.”

But Frank Bruni writes in the NY Times, “Just as God is said to work in mysterious ways, religion is working in unexpected ways in this campaign.”

Donald Trump, the candidate who is such a believer in family values he’s had three families, is doing just fine with evangelicals. A CBS News poll says Ted Cruz has 38 percent of Iowa evangelicals, but Trump, who mislabeled “Second Corinthians as “Two Corinthians,” has 30 percent. That’s “yuge.”

>Over on the Democratic side, Bernie Sanders said yesterday on NBC that his party has a better chance of taking back the House of Representatives if he’s their nominee. “Because,” he said, “I think our campaign is the campaign that is generating excitement and energy that will result in a high voter turnout. Republicans win when voter turnout is low. Democrats win when voter turnout is high.”

Sanders has been gaining on Hillary Clinton in Iowa, but may have peaked a couple of points short of a win. Still, he gets hipster points. Over the weekend he sang “This Land is Your Land” with the band Vampire Weekend.

Patriot Games: The FBI is still trying to negotiate with four holdouts at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. The diehard “patriots” aren’t coming out. One of them posted an online video in which he says, ““We’re asking, just drop the charges and we’re willing to go. But if they’re not willing to do that, we’re all just willing to stay here and see what happens.”

Protesters in Burns, Ore. Saturday night waved the American flag, the Gadsden “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, and the Confederate banner, which coordinates well with tree bark camouflage.

The Obit Page: The French-Swiss chef Benoît Violier, whose Swiss restaurant was named the best in the world only in December, has died an apparent suicide, Swiss authorities say. Violier, who believed that they key was consistency, not flashiness, ran the Restaurant de l’Hôtel de Ville. The great French chef Paul Bocuse said on Twitter, “great chef, great man, a gigantic talent.”

News We Don’t Care About: Cindy Crawford says she’ retiring from modeling at age 50 — The new Barbie dolls — The Super Bowl commercials — Whether Marissa Mayer continues to run Yahoo!.

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