An August 2005 Pew Forum poll examines the attitudes of various religious groups, including Catholics, toward politics and salient issues.

A Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll conducted in late June 2006 about voter views on the religious affiliations of possible presidential candidates showed that 10 percent of respondents would not vote for a candidate who was Roman Catholic. Yet that figure is much lower than the 21 percent who said they would not vote for an evangelical Protestant, […]

Read a July 6, 2006, backgrounder from the Pew Research Center titled “Do the Democrats Have a ‘God Problem’? How Public Perceptions May Spell Trouble for the Party.” The backgrounder makes use of material from a number of Pew surveys. Contact one of the report’s authors, Gregory A. Smith of the Pew Forum on Religion […]

This July 13, 2006 poll examines Latinos’ impressions of discrimination as a result of the immigration policy and debate.  

A chart from Beliefnet.com, “What do world religions believe about abortion?”

Chris Soper is a professor of political science at Pepperdine University in Malibu, Calif., and the author of Evangelical Christianity in the United States and Great Britain: Religious Beliefs, Political Choices.

The Rev. Russell Johnson is senior pastor at Fairfield Christian Church in Lancaster, Ohio. He and the Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church in Columbus have been accused by other Ohio pastors of using their churches as political platforms to advance conservative policies and Republican candidates.

Read a Nov. 27, 2006, New York Times story about the Vatican hosting a showing of The Nativity Story.

George G. Hunter III is a professor of church growth and evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky. He is the author of Christian, Evangelical & … Democrat? (2006), in which he questions the identification of the gospel with the Republican Party. He writes, “I am especially concerned for the soul and the credibility of evangelical Christianity […]