This week the Republican Jewish Coalition held its presidential candidates forum, and the visiting contenders engaged in transparently obsequious rhetoric to demonstrate their love of Israel.

Yesterday, the blogging was a little thin because I attended an all-day conference at the Pew Research Center on media coverage of religion and politics.

Gov. Rick Perry’s new campaign ad, “Strong,” features the line “... there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school.”

Though public support for both major political parties is very low, one group of voters is usually exempted from this malaise: evangelicals.

Believe it or not, politicians used to be able to assume that when the U.S. Catholic bishops spoke on an issue, that meant that the nation's Catholics had spoken.

A quarter of Americans in a recent poll said they are less likely to support a Mormon running for president, suggesting Republican Mitt Romney continues to have a "Mormon problem."

President Obama and Republicans have repeatedly clashed over policy toward Israel, incited most recently by comments from the U.S. ambassador to Belgium, who argued that some anti-Semitism was rooted in territorial tensions between Israel and its neighbors.

Saying President Barack Obama is waging war on religion, Texas Gov. Rick Perry adds in a TV ad his presidential campaign is airing in Iowa: "I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Christian, but you don't need to be in the pew every Sunday to know there's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school."

Religion and politics may not always mix well together, but that’s not the case for Republican candidates.

Police in Afghanistan said bombings on Tuesday hit a Shiite Muslim shrine and a mosque, killing at least 54 people, and wounding more than 100 during one of the most important days in the Shiite calendar, The New York Times reported.

In politics, there is support, and there is intensity of support. And heading into the 2012 election year, Republicans are ahead in the potentially crucial quest for intensity.

A new poll that gauges Americans' views of the Mormon faith served up difficult news for the nation's highest profile member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints: GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's Mormon faith may deter some white evangelicals -- an important Republican primary voting bloc -- from backing the former governor in the GOP primaries, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.

Religious lobbying in Washington has risen to the heavens, climbing almost five times in the last 40 years, a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life shows.

Lobbying and advocacy by religious groups in Washington have exploded in recent decades, increasing fivefold since 1970 to become a nearly $400 million industry, a new Pew report finds.

The number of religion-related lobbying groups in Washington has grown five-fold in the past 40 years, with their spending reaching almost $400 million annually, the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life latest study showed.

Republican evangelicals are less likely than other religious voters to support Mitt Romney in the primary elections, but they are more likely vote for him over President Obama in the general election, a new poll suggests.

God is everywhere—even K Street. According to a new study from the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, the number of organizations involved in religious lobbying or religion-related advocacy has increased nearly fivefold since 1970.

Religion-related lobbying groups have increased fivefold since 1970 in Washington, D.C., from fewer than 40 to more than 200 today, according to a study released today.

Mixed in with the thousands of corporate lobbyists on Capitol Hill each day is an unusual troop: religious advocates whose numbers have increased five-fold in recent decades and spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year, according to a new study.