Read a December 2008 Brookings Institution report on faith-based programs. The report was prepared by E.J. Dionne Jr., senior fellow in governance studies at Brookings, and Melissa Rogers, director of Wake Forest University Divinity School’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs.

CNN has exit poll data: Click on the “Results” tab and go to “Exit Polls.” The second page has most of the breakdowns by religion.

According to this Dec. 19, 2008, survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, most members of Congress are Protestant, as is most of the country.

An Aug. 27, 2007, Christian Science Monitor profile of Biden, “A frank and abiding faith,” is a good starting point for exploring his personal religious views.

In the Aug. 7, 2008, edition of Time magazine, Obama wrote a brief essay, “Changing Hearts and Minds,” which sets out his personal faith story.

The Charles Frank Reavis Sr. Professor of Law at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, N.Y. Shiffrin has written that liberals need to give faith-based groups more leeway to receive federal funds.

Stephen Goldsmith is Daniel Paul Professor of Government and director of the Innovations in American Government program at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He was a special adviser to President George W. Bush on faith-based initiatives. A former mayor of Indianapolis, Goldsmith is the author of Putting Faith in Neighborhoods: Making Cities Work Through Grassroots Citizenship.

Stanley Carlson-Thies is founder and senior director of the Institutional Religious Freedom Alliance, which has called for a “Fairness for All” approach to religious freedom and LGBTQ rights. He previously worked on faith-based initiatives for the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations.

What is clear is that presidents have nearly always been Protestants, with a few exceptions. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has a resource page on “Religion and the Presidency” that shows the religious affiliation of all 44 presidents. “Nearly half the nation’s presidents have been affiliated with the Episcopal or Presbyterian churches,” Pew […]