LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: This is Nick Vujicic in Los Angeles on his way to a sound check before he speaks at the National Resurgence Conference for future evangelical leaders. It features some of the country’s most influential evangelists, including Vujicic.

NICK VUJICIC: I’m going to be speaking about this loud.

SEVERSON: In just a few years, Vujicic has become a superstar evangelist.

VUJICIC: I started speaking 10 years ago and we’ve been across 44 countries, spoken 2,000 times to a live audience of 5 million face to face.

MAN: After the Q and A you want back in the wheelchair to exit right?

VUJICIC: Yes.

SEVERSON: Considering that he has no arms and no legs, traveling the world as he does is no small accomplishment.

VUJICIC: Sometimes my palms still get sweaty before a speech.

(at podium) How are you all.

SEVERSON: The people in the audience soon seem to forget that they have probably never met anyone quite as handicapped.

(to conference attendees) Were you put off at all by his physical appearance when you first saw him?

MAN: Oh, absolutely not.

WOMAN: No. Nothing at all, nothing at all, you don’t even see that, not at all.

MAN: You see the light of Jesus in his eyes and that’s what you see.

SEVERSON: One of the featured speakers here is Pastor Greg Laurie of the Harvest Christian Fellowship churches in Riverside and Irvine, California.

PASTOR GREG LAURIE: You know a person may think, well I’m having a hard time right now, you know maybe I’m not feeling well or I’m sick or whatever, and when you look at a guy who’s facing what Nick faces, that’s severe disability, and to hear him talk about hope and to talk about purpose and to talk about joy kind of silences you in whatever it was that was troubling you and puts your problems in perspective.

VUJICIC: (to conference attendee) Give me a hug. Love you so much.

I’m the world Guinness Book of Records holder of 1,749 hugs in one hour. My arms fell off. (laughs)

(speaking on stage) As a child, I was suicidal and I tried to commit suicide at age 10 because I didn’t know the truth, write this down, the truth of my value, the truth of my purpose and the truth of my destiny.

So at age 10 I tried to commit suicide with 6 inches of water in my family bathtub and the first two times I rolled over I was trying to work out how much air I hold in my lungs before I let the water come in and on the third time I rolled over I saw a picture in my mind of my mum, my dad and my brother crying at my grave wishing they could have done something more. And that alone stopped me. I realized there is a pain of having a disabled son with no limbs but greater is the pain to have a son without limbs who commits suicide.

SEVERSON: Now the Australian born preacher runs an international non-profit organization called Life Without Limbs, has authored books, markets inspirational DVD’s, including one for kids called “No Arms, No Legs, No Worries,” and is in great demand as a motivational speaker. He has two caregivers who help him manage a very hectic life. Bryan Tarter traveled with him to 24 countries.

(to Bryan Tarter): What do you think drives him?

BRYAN TARTER: Oh definitely his faith. Yeah, his faith in God. There’s a lot of people in this world that don’t have hope and he just knows that he can give that hope to people.

VUJICIC: And I was very angry at God and I said God if you’re real and you love me, where is my miracle? So then I started doubting that he was real and I said, “God you owe me an explanation.” At age 15 God clearly answered me through John Chapter 9 about the question of why. Jesus came across a man who was born blind and Jesus said he was born that way so that the works of God would be revealed through him and faith came over me, tangibly I felt peace.

(speaking on stage): Your son and your daughter needs an excellent father more than an excellent college.

SEVERSON: Many in the audience here are laymen or aspiring ministers and his message to them is to not forget their families.

VUJICIC: (speaking on stage) God gave me a wife to enjoy the blessing of being married, and being a husband and being a father.

SEVERSON: His concern for family grew considerably when he got married a few months ago. Now his new wife is pregnant.

VUJICIC: And just a couple weeks ago, I felt my son kick in her womb and it was amazing.

SEVERSON: Amazing for someone born with an extremely rare disease called Tetra-amelia syndrome characterized by the absence of all four limbs, but in his case, a foot with two toes that enable him to type, and answer hundreds of texts every day. He can surf, play drums, comb his hair, brush his teeth, shave, answer the phone and a lot more as Bryan Tarter learned when he went for a job interview as his care giver.

TARTER: The first time you meet him he just breaks down your walls, gives you a hug and you actually forget that he doesn’t have arms and legs.

VUJICIC: (in video) I am not nervous yet. My knees are not shaking, my heart is hot beating yet, but I’ll tell you when I’m on that plane, I’m going to be going…(screams)

PASTOR LAURIE: You know he’ll go and speak in a church or in an arena or in a stadium and everyone will think what a wonderful story he has and how great it was that he came but you know Nick still has to go home and face that disability every night and every morning. I’ve thought about that.

SEVERSON: He says he still goes through bouts of depression.

VUJICIC: We all are going through ups and downs no matter how strong we are in our faith in God, there are still some wild cards that come along our way and we ask God what happened? Why?

SEVERSON: Vujicic says the worst part of his childhood was the loneliness.

VUJICIC: Just five years ago I met a little boy with no arms and no legs, first kid that I ever met that looked nearly exactly like me, left foot and everything. And I heard he was getting teased at his school. So I went to his school and I shared about my life and shared how cool I thought Daniel was and now Daniel is the coolest kid on the block.

SEVERSON: He says it’s his mission to travel to high schools around the country preaching against bullying, which he considers to be a very serious problem. He knows from personal experience.

VUJICIC: You know I actually remember going up to some people who were teasing me at school and I confronted them about how they treated me and they were surprised that I had the guts to come up to them and I went right up to them and I said why do you do that? Why do you tease me? Oh, it’s hurting you? I didn’t mean to. Oh really? Now I’m going to tell you stop it and by the way I forgive you. And I asked him to give me a hug.

SEVERSON: Later this year, he’ll speak to high school students in Oregon on the subject of bullying, and then there will be other preaching engagements on the subject of his faith and his purpose.

VUJICIC: I just hope people see that if God can do something beautiful with my broken pieces, then God truly has a plan for each and everyone of us.

SEVERSON: Next year, Nick Vujicic plans to preach in 27 countries.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Los Angeles.

KIM LAWTON, managing editor: Before Monday’s public swearing-in ceremony, the Obamas attended a special worship service at St. John’s Episcopal Church. Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders were part of the service, which was closed to cameras. Then, the public ceremony began with an invocation by Myrlie Evers-Williams, widow of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers and the first laywoman to give an inaugural prayer.

MYRLIE EVERS-WILLIAMS: We invoke the prayers of our grandmothers, who taught us to pray, “God, make me a blessing.”

LAWTON: Music included the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.

PRESIDENT OBAMA, in inaugural address: The oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country.

LAWTON: The president cited God many times in his address. He laid out a liberal vision for the nation, which included an explicit endorsement of gay rights.

OBAMA, in inaugural address: Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law.

LAWTON: That was praised by some faith-based leaders who called this “the most LGBT-friendly” inauguration in history. But religious conservatives were critical, calling the statement “strident and divisive.” Many evangelicals are still upset that Rev. Louie Giglio, who was originally set to give the inaugural benediction, withdrew because of controversy over a sermon against homosexuality that he gave in the 1990s. St. John’s rector, Luis Leon, offered the benediction instead.

Evangelicals did participate in the interfaith Inaugural Prayer Service at Washington National Cathedral on Tuesday (January 22). With the Obamas and Bidens in attendance, representatives from a broad array of religious traditions prayed for the nation and its leaders. The service included Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh participants. A major theme of the event was finding a common vision in a nation that remains deeply divided.

BOB ABERNETHY: Kim, for all the religious diversity at the Cathedral and at other events, the inauguration itself, the main event, was remarkably Protestant only. A Protestant giving the invocation, a Protestant doing the benediction. Did you hear any complaints about that?

LAWTON: I didn’t hear any complaints, probably because there was so much diversity at some of the other events. The last few inaugural events have been very Protestant in terms of the religious leaders who participated. That hasn’t always been the case. During FDR’s time, there was a Catholic. There have been Jewish leaders, Greek Orthodox leaders in the past who have done it.

ABERNETHY: And the inauguration itself is always such a reminder of the intertwining of religion and government, the language, so many references to God, especially in the music.

LAWTON: The civil religion, America’s civil religion, is always at the forefront, what people call, this idea also people call American exceptionalism, that God has some kind of special, chosen place for America. President Obama, I thought, in his inaugural address also really harkened to that when he talked about this creed that we have, a national creed based on the Declaration of Independence, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It was interesting this time around, a lot of religious conservatives talk about, you know, God has chosen us as a people, but to have a liberal put God with that liberal agenda was something interesting.

ABERNETHY: Many thanks, Kim.

BOB ABERNETHY, host: Like many others in the nation, faith groups are assessing the impact of this week’s election. According to exit polls, President Obama won a slight majority of Catholic voters overall, thanks largely to strong support from Latino Catholics. Mitt Romney won the white Catholic vote by an almost 20-point margin. Almost 80 percent of evangelicals who voted voted for Romney. Black Protestants went overwhelmingly for Obama, as did the vast majority of Jews. But the biggest share of Obama’s faith coalition was voters who say they aren’t affiliated with any religion.

Steve Schneck was co-chair of Catholics for Obama. He says while issues like abortion, religious liberty, and gay marriage were important, in the end it was the economy that tipped the scale for the president.

STEVE SCHNECK: All of these religious issues, while they are important to religious voters, I think, even among religious voters they ranked these issues a little further down on the spectrum.

ABERNETHY: Ralph Reed of the Faith and Freedom Coalition admitted that a massive mobilization among religious conservatives wasn’t enough to offset the number of women, young people, and minorities who voted Democratic.

RALPH REED: I think we need to do a better job of not looking like, you know, your daddy’s religious right. You know, we have to be as a movement younger. We have to be more diverse ethnically.

ABERNETHY: Voters also decided several key ballot initiatives. For the first time ever, measures to approve same-sex marriage passed by referendum in Maine, Maryland, and Washington State. And voters in Minnesota rejected a proposed constitutional ban on gay marriage. In Massachusetts, a measure to legalize physician-assisted suicide was narrowly defeated. In California, voters decided not to abolish the death penalty.

With all the acrimony around the election, many religious leaders called for a new spirit of civility. More than 700 churches held special Election Day Communion services. Organizers said they wanted to refocus allegiance to God and work for justice beyond the ballot box.

Now, more on this week’s presidential election: I’m joined by Kim Lawton, managing editor of this program; Kevin Eckstrom, editor of Religion News Service; and Rachel Zoll, national religion writer for the Associated Press, who’s with us from New York. Kim, underneath all the data do you see a message?

KIM LAWTON: Well, there’s definitely a message for, I think, the Republican Party and the religious right—that those old faith-based coalitions that won elections aren’t winning those elections any more. I mean, you had—evangelicals did an unprecedented mobilization. They came out to the polls, and they voted more for Republicans than they have in previous elections even. You had, when you break out by race, almost 60 percent of white Catholics going for Romney and still those two together weren’t enough to tip the election, and that’s different than previous elections, and believe me that’s making many of the people inside the religious right, but also inside the Republican Party, taking notice.

ABERNETHY: Rachel in New York: did you see any pattern or message in all that data?

RACHEL ZOLL: I think one of the messages is a growing acceptance for Mormons by the Christian conservatives. The—we saw at the beginning of this election, people thought that Mitt Romney’s faith, his Mormonism, was going to keep evangelicals from the polls. Now we don’t have final numbers on the size of the electorate, but it’s clear that he won— Governor Romney won the overwhelming percentage of white evangelical votes. They did vote for him despite theological differences.

ABERNETHY: And how do you interpret that?

ZOLL: That Mormons have, in a growing way—are gaining acceptance in the United States.

ABERNETHY: Kevin, what did you see?

KEVIN ECKSTROM: I think one of the big take-aways, not just on religion, but just generally is the growth of the Hispanics. I think what, 71 percent of Hispanics voted for President Obama, and that’s not just a message for the Republicans or the Democrats, but I think also for evangelicals that the coalition that they’ve always relied on, primarily white, primarily older, primarily male, isn’t going to cut it anymore. And so I think you’re going to see, perhaps, a bit more evangelical activism on immigration, which they’ve already been doing, but I think this election will really kind of ramp that up.

LAWTON: And it’s an interesting question.

ABERNETHY: And they’re talking about that coming up soon.

LAWTON: Exactly, exactly but that’s the question. Religious right leaders are saying, okay, we recognize we need to open up a little bit. The Republican Party recognizes they need to reach out. But how do you do that? Do you need to change the message? And I think that’s one question that people are taking away different answers on. Is the answer to be less extreme, or less dogmatic on issues like abortion and gay marriage? Will that appeal to more people? Now, Latinos tend to be more conservative on social issues, but they don’t tend to vote, by and large, on the social issues, so how exactly do you broaden that tent?

ABERNETHY: Rachel, you’ve had things to say about the difference between changing the language of something that you want to talk about and changing the position. Fill us in on that.

ZOLL: Well, that’s one of the fears I think among a lot of Christian conservatives, religious conservatives in the Republican Party—that the lesson that the party will take away from this is that they should not be speaking about social issues and that this emphasis on social issues is actually something that’s going to hurt them. Now the counter-argument that a lot of the different groups are making, including the anti-abortion groups, is that we had—they had a moderate nominee, Mitt Romney, for the job who did not talk enough about social issues, and that is one of the arguments I’m hearing.

ECKSTROM: But if you look, though, at social issues, if you rope in homosexuality with that, along with abortion that Rachel mentioned, I mean, we had a clear win for gay rights across the board almost in this election. So I think, yeah, you can talk more about abortion or homosexuality, but I think the numbers and the trends, at least on the gay question, maybe abortion’s a little different, but on the gay question I think what we saw this time is that it doesn’t have the same salience and the same power or even the same level of acceptance that many religious conservatives might think.

ABERNETHY: What does that say to you—that the country is becoming much more tolerant?

ECKSTROM: Yes, I think so. And I think, you know, we used to talk about the Will-and-Grace Effect back in the ‘90s, you know, where people learned about, you know, gay people, but now you have shows where you have two gay dads, and you’ve got a transgender character on “Glee.” The society is moving much faster than politics or even the religious institutions on this question.

ABERNETHY: Rachel, I wanted to ask you where do the election returns leave the relationship between the Catholic bishops and the president of the United States?

ZOLL: That’s the question. Things got very bitter this year between the bishops and President Obama when he enacted the birth control mandate that was part of the health care—his health care reform. He and Cardinal Dolan, who is the president of the U.S. bishops conference, once actually had a very friendly relationship. Instead, they now—you hear bishops very vehemently condemning President Obama throughout the election for his policies, saying he’s dangerous for the country and dangerous for religious freedom itself. It’s not at all clear how they’re going to work together going forward. One of the other problems that the bishops have is that when they went to Republicans who appeared to be more sympathetic and open to their situation, or their argument on the religious liberty question, ultimately did not do anything for them and dropped the issue.

LAWTON: And there’s some interesting, also, I think—tensions within the laity, the Catholic community, that we saw come out in this election. I mean, we saw outside Catholic players on both sides. The bishops were very active especially highlighting issues of religious freedom, abortion, marriage, traditional marriage. You also saw the “Nuns on the Bus” and people from the more progressive end in the Catholic Church raising issues about economic justice and budget concerns, and there were a lot of divisions, and frankly I saw a lot of vitriol in the Catholic laity, on the blogs and everything, between those two wings which—those differences have always been there, differences of emphasis maybe within the Church, but some of that vitriol really seemed to bubble up in this election.

ABERNETHY: So, the Joe Biden wing and the—

LAWTON: The Joe Biden Catholics and Paul Ryan Catholics, and they didn’t agree on a whole lot this time around.

ECKSTROM: But I think at the end of the day, Cardinal Dolan who heads the bishops conference is, in a lot, a lot of ways, in the same position as Speaker Boehner in the House, and they’re going to have to work with this president whether they like it or not. They tried maybe to defeat him. It didn’t work. But I think Cardinal Dolan at his heart is a pragmatist and wants to get something done, and the question is how they’re going to work together. I think they’ll be forced to work together.

ABERNETHY: Everyone talks about the message being, okay, you guys, go back to Washington, make some compromises, get something done. It’s not clear exactly what’s to be done although everyone agrees immigration is one of the things that’s very high. But a lot of people see this fiscal cliff coming, the need for Congress and the president to get together to prevent big, big cuts in spending and big, big increases in taxes. So how can the religious communities help in that?

LAWTON: Well, it’s interesting because religious people have been and will continue to be involved sort of in both ends of that debate, and for each side it’s a moral issue. So, you have Catholics, including the Catholic bishops, saying we need to help the poor. Budget cuts can hurt the poor and that, that’s a matter of belief, religious belief, and conscience for them. You have religious conservatives using moral language to talk about the debt, and it’s immoral to leave a debt to our children, and they’re pretty strong on that, and the press releases that I’ve been getting after the election certainly didn’t mention compromise as a religious value. They—all sides talked about staying strong on their particular positions.

ZOLL: One of the interesting things that this brings up is that this is an area where the bishops, the Catholic bishops, can work closely with the Obama administration, and I suspect that the Obama administration would very much welcome it. I don’t think anyone benefits, and they don’t feel that anyone benefits from the tensions between them, and the bishops have obviously not only a theology but an incredible track record in terms of supporting poor, the poor people in terms of charities, and they are very concerned about these social issues, and next week when they meet they will also be discussing the economy and poverty.

ABERNETHY: Our time is up, I’m sorry to say. Rachel Zoll in New York, thank you very much. Kim Lawton here, Kevin Eckstrom here in Washington, thanks to all of you.

ALL: Thank you.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent: Both campaigns continue their active efforts to get their constituencies out to the polls next week. Professor John Green of the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron says in a tight election, the campaigns look to the coalitions they can rely upon, and that includes faith coalitions.

PROF. JOHN GREEN (University of Akron): Each side understands that every vote will count.

LAWTON: Green says while faith-based outreach hasn’t dominated this campaign season, it has continued to be a key factor.

GREEN: A lot of that effort though, is not on television. It’s going on behind the scenes, because appealing to a particular group always has the capacity of alienating another group. This is true for Democrats as well as Republicans. So they’re trying to assemble these coalitions a little bit, I wouldn’t say completely below radar, but certainly off television.

LAWTON: Prior to 2008, scholars talked about a God-gap in American politics: the more often people attended religious services, the more likely they were to vote Republican, the exception being African Americans, who are overwhelmingly Democratic. Many experts believe that trend will continue in this election cycle. Melissa Deckman is professor of political science, at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland.

PROF. MELISSA DECKMAN (Washington College): If you think about the God-gap, so-called God-gap, it’s still alive and well this year in American politics, and it’s bigger than things like the gender gap, although you often hear more in the media about women’s voting and men’s voting, so I think religion continues to play a big role in American presidential elections.

LAWTON: The Republicans are hoping for a big turnout from evangelicals, who make up about one-quarter of GOP voters. In the early days of the campaign, there were questions about whether theological differences would keep evangelicals from supporting a Mormon candidate. Governor Mitt Romney’s campaign tried to woo them on the basis of shared values.

GOV. MITT ROMNEY: (in speech) People of different faiths, like yours and mine, sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose, when there are so many differences in creed and theology. Surely the answer is that we can meet in service, in shared moral convictions about our nation stemming from a common worldview.

DECKMAN: It seems to me that the Mormon issue isn’t quite as big of a deal as perhaps many had speculated. Instead, we see that evangelicals have really taken to Romney, I think mainly because of their dislike of Obama, but his religious views I think have not mattered as much.

LAWTON: The question is whether enough evangelical Republican voters have been convinced that the religious differences don’t matter.

GREEN: I think that Governor Romney does face a challenge with getting high level of turnout and enthusiastic support from the white evangelical community, which has been a mainstay of Republican presidential vote for a number of years now. And that’s because there is this lingering skepticism.

LAWTON: Catholics have been another important group this election season, especially with Catholic candidates on both tickets for the first time ever. But it has been clear that Vice-President Joe Biden and Representative Paul Ryan have very different views on how to apply their faith to their politics.

VICE-PRES. JOE BIDEN: (at debate)  Life begins at conception. That’s the church’s judgment. I accept it in my personal life. But I refuse to impose it on equally devout Christians and Muslims and Jews and — I just refuse to impose that on others, unlike my friend here, the congressman.

REP. PAUL RYAN (at debate): I don’t see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do.

LAWTON: In many ways, those differences mirror differences among grassroots Catholic voters. At one end of the spectrum are strongly conservative Catholics who tend to stress issues around abortion. At the other end are more liberal Catholics who stress issues of economic justice. Then there are those in the middle.

GREEN: There are if you will, Biden Catholics and Ryan Catholics, and both campaigns are struggling very hard to get those groups mobilized but then there are a lot of Catholics who are in the middle, who might agree with the Republicans on one issue and with the Democrats on another so quite an effort to get the middle of the road Catholics to swing one way or another.

LAWTON: One unusual hallmark of this campaign was the high profile involvement of outside Catholic players. A group of nuns led by Sister Simone Campbell of the lobby group NETWORK, launched a road trip called “Nuns on the Bus” to highlight their view that the budget cuts promoted by Paul Ryan would hurt the poor and violate church teachings. Campbell was invited to share her views at the Democratic National Convention.

Meanwhile, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, offered benedictions at both the Democratic and Republican Conventions. For months, the bishops have led a vigorous campaign against the Obama Administration’s policy mandating that employers, including many religious employers, offer free coverage of contraceptive services to their employees. The bishops accuse the Obama Administration of violating religious liberty.

It’s unclear how much those efforts have changed any opinions among voters. Polls show Catholics remain deeply divided, and that could be especially important in battleground states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida. While much of the focus has been on the economy, Green says here at the end of the campaign, other social issues may play an important role.

GREEN: There’s some strong incentives for the parties to reach out for secondary issues. Issues like women’s rights, religious liberty, the environment, foreign policy. Because if voters are evenly divided on their most salient issue, the economy, they’re going to make their decision perhaps on some of these secondary issues. issues that they don’t regard as the most important, but they might not be able to choose between Governor Romney and President Obama on something like unemployment so some of these other issues may matter.

LAWTON: Both candidates have attempted to apply moral and religious language to their economic policies.

ROMNEY: (at debate) I think it’s, frankly, not moral for my generation to keep spending massively more than we take in, knowing those burdens are going to be passed on to the next generation and they’re going to be paying the interest and the principal all their lives.

PRES. BARACK OBAMA: (in speech) If I’m willing to give something up as somebody who’s been extraordinarily blessed, and give up some of the tax breaks that I enjoy, I actually think that’s going to make economic sense. But for me as a Christian, it also coincides with Jesus’s teaching that “for unto whom much is given, much shall be required.”

LAWTON: But much of the God-talk has been done directly to religious audiences, as opposed to in general campaign venues. Even Obama, who made frequent religious references in the last campaign and throughout his presidency, hasn’t been emphasizing it as much of late. Some experts believe that could be to avoid alienating the growing number of secular voters who are Democratic.

GREEN: There’s some real positives to these candidate’s faith but there’s also some real potential downside, and so that’s why I don’t, we don’t see the candidates themselves talking a lot about it, but their surrogates and their campaigns are reaching out to religious and non religious voters alike, trying to bring them into their camp.

LAWTON: For most of the campaign, Romney refrained from speaking directly about his Mormon faith. In the last few weeks, he’s opened up a bit more, although he still largely avoids using the word “Mormon.”

ROMNEY: (at debate) My passion probably flows from the fact that I believe in God. And I believe we’re all children of the same God. I believe we have a responsibility to care for one another. I — I served as a missionary for my church. I served as a pastor in my congregation for about 10 years.

DECKMAN: I think what has been a smart strategy for Mitt Romney is not to focus on Mormonism per se, because when you start talking about the specifics of any faith, then that becomes the issue.

LAWTON: With a Mormon, two Catholics, and only one Protestant on the ticket this time, Deckman says that represents something important about the nation.

DECKMAN: Americans, despite their religious differences, by and large are pretty tolerant. // We have our issues in American history where that’s not necessarily the case and some groups like atheists and Muslims might not feel that way, but generally speaking we have a surprising amount of tolerance here.

LAWTON: And whatever happens next week, many believe that could be one of the most important religion stories coming out of this presidential election. I’m Kim Lawton reporting

BOB ABERNETHY, host: Both presidential candidates this week issued direct video appeals to faith-based voters. President Obama’s video came with the launch of a new campaign project called “People of Faith for Obama”:

OBAMA: “I’m asking for your support because we have more work to do to build an economy where families are valued and secure, and expand opportunity, extend compassion and pursue the common good.”

ABERNETHY: Meanwhile, Governor Romney’s campaign released a video that was played for religious conservatives at the Values Voter summit in Washington last weekend:

ROMNEY: “All we ask is that between now and November 6th, you join us and commit like never before. This election can come down to just one more vote. I ask you to find that one vote, ask one more person to join our campaign.”

ABERNETHY: Our managing editor Kim Lawton has been covering the campaigns. Kim, what do we know so far from the polls about how faith-based people are dividing?

KIM LAWTON (Managing Editor, Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly): Well, of course, it’s just a snapshot for right now but there were some new numbers this week that suggested that evangelicals, that all important group for Republicans, do seem to be supporting Mitt Romney at around the same levels they supported John McCain, which is very high, so that’s good news for Governor Romney. Catholics seem to be more divided as they were last time around although some new numbers this week suggest that they are leaning more towards Obama as they did in the last election. I was surprised to see this week numbers suggesting that mainline Protestants, who went principally for John McCain last time around or slightly more for John McCain, are, more of them are leaning towards Obama this time around.

ABERNETHY: Is there anything at all in the data to suggest that Romney’s religion is making any difference?

LAWTON: Well, in these snapshots that we have right now it doesn’t appear to be the case. Some people had wondered if evangelicals would not be supporting him because he’s a Mormon and some evangelicals are concerned about that, had raised concerns about voting for a Mormon candidate. Doesn’t appear to be that way, however, people have to get to the polls for it to actually matter, you know, turnout is what counts. I was surprised in the video this week that Mitt Romney released, he never once mentioned his Mormon faith and some people had suggested that he might be talking about it more. He didn’t this week.

ABERNETHY: Not talking about it perhaps because it is a matter of concern for a lot of evangelical Protestants?

LAWTON: Well, that’s what some people are wondering if he just doesn’t want to raise it, he doesn’t want to raise it.

ABERNETHY: And the issue of religious liberty, quickly, for the Catholic leadership.

LAWTON: That’s something President Obama stressed in his video this week. He said “I’m firmly committed to religious liberty and always will be.” That’s an issue that some Catholics, particularly in the hierarchy, had been challenging him on. Again, it doesn’t seem to be hitting the grassroots right now.

ABERNETHY: Kim Lawton, many thanks.

LUCKY SEVERSON, correspondent: This is the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City, epicenter of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There’s been a lot of criticism about Mormonism, especially among evangelicals like Stephen Davis. He’s a religion scholar at Claremont McKenna College.

PROFESSOR STEPHEN DAVIS (Philosophy and Religious Studies, Claremont McKenna College): If the question is, is Mormonism a legitimate expression of Christianity, honestly I would have to say no. I think that legitimate expressions of Christianity can be found in Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and Protestantism, virtually all the Protestant denominations, but not Mormonism, because too many of their doctrines and beliefs are non-Christian.

PROFESSOR PATRICK MASON (Chair of Mormon Studies, Claremont Graduate University): Mormons take real offense when people tell them that they’re not Christian.

SEVERSON: Patrick Mason is the chairman of Mormon studies at Claremont Graduate University and a Mormon himself.

MASON: If Christian defines what is your relationship to Jesus—do you believe that salvation comes through Jesus, do you worship Jesus Christ—then no doubt Mormons are Christian. I mean they’ll be the first to tell you, look at the name of the church; it’s the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

SEVERSON: Mason says antagonism toward Mormons stretches back to the beginning of the church. They’ve been called a cult, demonic, a false religion with a false prophet.

MASON: Mormons in a lot of ways are scarred from a long history of misrepresentation in what they see as false reports about the church or unfair treatment of the church, and this goes all the way back to the 1830s.

SEVERSON: That was when Joseph Smith said he had a revelation where Jesus told him that all the religions at that time were an abomination in his sight. From then on Mormons, who were seen by some as lower-class, superstitious dupes, were targets of ridicule and violence eventually leading to the assassination of Joseph Smith. In the 1860s, the government sent the army to Utah to keep an eye on the Mormons. The army established this fort overlooking Salt Lake City. The cannons that were here were aimed at the Mormons.

But the most vocal critics of Mormons have long been evangelicals. Richard Mouw, president and professor of Christian philosophy at the Fuller School of Theology, says one reason is because Mormons have been such good proselytizers.

PROFESSOR RICHARD MOUW (Fuller Theological Seminary): Mormonism began as this evangelistic program of going out and getting converts, and very often converts from the traditional denominations, and so evangelicals and Mormons have had an unusually hostile relationship over the years because they have been sort of competing proselytizing programs, but also they traded the rhetoric in very hostile terms.

MASON: There’s a sense of them-against-us that in some ways gets inflated among the grassroots membership of the church. But there is no doubt that for many people they see evangelicals as the enemy, and they need to be converted.

SEVERSON: Among scholars, the important distinction between Mormonism and most mainstream Christian churches centers on theology.

MASON: The Mormon view of the Godhead is that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are three separate beings, so Mormons reject a Trinitarian notion that they’re three in one. Mormons see them as three distinct and separate beings.

DAVIS: Evangelical Christians, like all mainstream Christians, want to say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one in some really strong, ontological sense.

MASON: And Mormons also have an idea that they’re not—that God is not ontologically different than humans in the sense so God and humans are essentially the same species, that humans can progress to eventually become like God. God is not radically “other,” but in a sense approachable and understandable and knowable.

DAVIS: The idea that God, the God whom we worship, was once a human being and then grew to be God, grew to Godhood, will strike most evangelical Christians as being blasphemous.

SEVERSON: Another fundamental difference is that Mormons rely on more than just the Bible for the word of God.

MASON: Certainly Mormons don’t believe in the Bible as the only word of God. They believe in an open canon, that God continues to speak to prophets today.

DAVIS: They believe in continuing revelation. They have three other books, the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price and a book called Doctrines and Covenants, and evangelical Christians would never accept that those books are inspired or the word of God or are prophetic.

MOUW: So I often say that the bad news about Mormonism is they believe in continuing revelation. The good news about Mormonism is that they believe in continuing revelation, and they might actually, in continuing revelation, begin to modify and alter some of the things that they see themselves as having received in earlier revelation.

SEVERSON: Mormon theology has changed over the years after church prophets have received new revelations. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the church allowed blacks to hold the priesthood. And the church’s policy allowing plural marriage was abandoned in the 1890s after a prophetic revelation.

DAVIS: A lot of Americans are suspicious of Mormons over the issue of polygamy, which should have gone away a long time ago. But the problem is that there are these Mormon fundamentalist sects, especially in southern Utah and northern Arizona, that still practice polygamy, and I think that gets a lot of the American people confused about what the Mormon Church’s position really is.

SEVERSON: As for lingering animosity today, Professor Mouw says some of it is because the Mormon Church has grown so big and prosperous.

MOUW: And I think it has something to do with the growth of Mormonism. While on the one hand they’re entering into the mainstream in a lot of ways, they’re also a very powerful presence globally—14 million Mormons around the world. They’re identified with some of the major businesses. There’s a sense that it’s a kind of juggernaut, that it has tremendous clout.

SEVERSON: As for the claims that Mormonism is a cult, Professor Mouw takes exception.

MOUW: I mean one reason why I don’t think it’s very helpful to call Mormonism a cult is that they have a world-class university. They have scholars who consider all kinds of complex topics. You know, Scientology doesn’t have a world-class university. Hari Krishna doesn’t, Jehovah Witnesses don’t. But Mormonism has pretty much entered into the mainstream of intellectual life.

SEVERSON: Mouw goes even further, accusing some some of Mormonism’s accusers of “shading the truth.”

MOUW: I want to say I think the motives of people who often attack, for example, attack Mormons as evangelical leaders or other kinds of Christian leaders is that they do want to protect their people against falsehood, against being led astray. But when it comes in terms of standing up for the truth, if you tell falsehoods about another religion that’s bearing false witness against our neighbors.

SEVERSON: Mouw expressed those sentiments to a packed house at the Mormon Tabernacle. His words did not sit well with many evangelicals.

MOUW: The press the next morning the big story was “Fuller Seminary president says we’ve sinned against Mormons,” and boy, I get hate mail yet on that.

DAVIS: I think we have not been fair. There’s a lot of anti-Mormon apologetics that are out there and anti-Mormon polemics, where unfair charges are made against the Mormons. I think that’s absolutely right.

SEVERSON: The bias against Mormonism has been a problem for Mitt Romney’s campaign. But attitudes seem to be changing. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that eight of ten voters who know Mitt Romney is a Mormon say they are either comfortable with his faith or that it no longer matters.

For Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly, I’m Lucky Severson in Salt Lake City.

KIM LAWTON, correspondent. In accepting the Republican nomination for president Thursday, Governor Mitt Romney talked more personally about his religion than he has so far on the campaign trail. Describing his background, Romney specifically mentioned his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

MITT ROMNEY (speaking at convention): We were Mormons and growing up in Michigan; that might have seemed unusual or out of place but I really don’t remember it that way. My friends cared more about what sports teams we followed than what church we went to.

LAWTON: In the 1980s, Romney was bishop for a Mormon congregation in suburban Boston. In the LDS tradition, a bishop is similar to a pastor. He oversaw other churches as well.

ROMNEY: We had remarkably vibrant and diverse congregations from all walks of life and many who were new to America. We prayed together, our kids played together and we always stood ready to help each other out in different ways. That’s how it is in America. We look to our communities, our faiths, our families for our joy, our support, in good times and bad.

LAWTON: Earlier in the evening, fellow church members talked at length about Romney’s devotion, his compassion, and his service. Grant Bennett succeeded Romney as pastor.

GRANT BENNETT (Church leader): Mitt didn’t discuss questions of theology. He found the definition of religion given by James in the New Testament to be a practical guide: “Pure religion is to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction.”

LAWTON: On Wednesday night, vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan, a Roman Catholic, linked his own faith with Romney’s.

REP. PAUL RYAN: Our faiths come together in the same moral creed. We believe that in every life there is goodness; for every person, there is hope. Each one of us was made for a reason, bearing the image and likeness of the Lord of life.

LAWTON: Prior to this week, there had been few explicit references to Romney’s Mormonism from the campaign. And there has been intense debate about whether the topic should be addressed head on. According to the Pew Research Center, half of all Americans say it doesn’t bother them when politicians talk about how religious they are. Two-thirds of Americans say it is important to have a president with strong religious beliefs. And among Republicans, that number jumps to more than 80 percent.

Mark DeMoss is an evangelical and a close Romney advisor on faith issues. He says he’s been impressed by the depth of Romney’s religious beliefs.

MARK DEMOSS (Romney Advisor): This is a really rock-solid faith that I think guides this man when he wakes up until he goes to bed.

DeMOSS (in speech): I trust his character, his integrity, his moral compass. And finally I trust his values, for I’m fully convinced that they mirror my own values.

LAWTON: For the last six years, DeMoss has been trying to enlist other evangelicals to the Romney cause, including those who say they don’t want to vote for a Mormon because they don’t consider Mormons to be fellow Christians.

DeMOSS: The same people that will say that would have no problem letting a doctor of a different faith do open heart surgery on them, will fly on an airplane piloted by a pilot of a different faith and then suddenly say “But I can’t vote for a president of a different faith.”

LAWTON: Republicans need the enthusiastic support of evangelicals, who make up more than a quarter of the GOP coalition. Ralph Reed, president of the Faith and Freedom Coalition, says it’s wrong to think that evangelicals would be upset because there are no Protestants on the GOP ticket.

RALPH REED (Faith & Freedom Coalition): They are very sophisticated. They understand that there are many candidates who are Jews, who are Mormons, who are Catholics who may not share their theology, who share their values, and they’ll vote for them and work for them and I think they’re going to do that for Ryan and Romney.

LAWTON: The Faith and Freedom Coalition held a high-profile rally to kick off the convention. Numerous speakers used religious issues to rally support for Romney.

NEWT GINGRICH (in speech): Unlike Barack Obama, he actually understands that the basis of our liberty is the grant from God, and that no government can come between God and man.

LAWTON: Reed outlined an ambitious strategy to target 17 million evangelicals who he says didn’t vote in the last presidential election.

REED (in speech): We going to mail them, we’re going to text them, we’re going to email them, we’re going to phone them, and if they haven’t voted by November 6, we’re going to get in the car and we’re going to drive to their house and we’re going to get them to the polls.

REED: In 2008, the Obama campaign and the left really out-hustled us and did so very badly. But not any more.

LAWTON: Another key group will be Catholics. In the last election, a slight majority of Catholics voted for President Obama. In most recent elections, the presidential candidate who won the most Catholic votes won the election. Many Catholics here at the convention said there’s a lot of pride in the fact that former altar boy Paul Ryan is the vice-presidential candidate. They say the Romney-Ryan ticket offers much that resonates with their community.

MAUREEN FERGUSON (The Catholic Association): There are certain core, fundamental issues to our faith and that is the right to life, the right to religious liberty to practice our faith free from government interference, and the defense of marriage and not the redefinition of marriage and family. These are core issues that are fundamental to our faith that we must consider as Catholics to be primary in terms of deciding for whom we’re going to vote.

LAWTON: There were several convention events to celebrate the party’s traditional stands on issues like abortion and gay marriage. But even the most socially conservative delegates acknowledged that economic issues will, and should, dominate this election.

MARGARET STOLDORF (Iowa Delegate): The moral fabric of our lives is intertwined with the economy, and I do not believe that we the people, the government needs to or feel compelled to support every living being.

RICHARD HAYES (Texas Delegate): We spend too much money, and it’s hurting us, and it’s hurting us not only personally but globally.

LAWTON: The Tea Party, which has significant religious support, had an active presence here. Various Tea Party affiliates held a unity rally at local evangelical megachurch.

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN: These concepts–taxed enough already, don’t spend more than what you take in and follow the Constitution–are now a part of the Republican Party platform thanks to the Tea Party.

LAWTON: Over the past several months, many in the moderate and liberal faith communities have raised concerns that cuts to social programs in Ryan’s proposed budget would hurt the poor. And some Catholics in particular, took issue with Ryan using Catholic social teaching to defend his plan. But former Ambassador to the Vatican and Catholics for Ryan co-chair Jim Nicholson defended Ryan.

AMB. JIM NICHOLSON (Catholics for Romney): I think Ryan shows a great of deal of compassion really, a real Catholic value, because of the things he wants to change so that there will be sustainability in these programs and help the people who really need it, so that we can afford it out there when our children and grandchildren are out there and some of them who will need help probably.

LAWTON: Still, many in the faith community continued issuing challenges to the Republicans’ economic plans. The progressive Jewish group Bend the Arc was in Tampa calling for the wealthy to pay more taxes.

ELLIE AXE (Bend the Arc): We’re representing a Jewish community that cares a lot about social and economic justice. And what that means for us right now is that we believe that the top two percent earners should pay their fair share in taxes.

LAWTON: Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

REV. SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ (National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference): We can’t neglect the poor. Now I’m not referencing the idea of government dependency for the rest of your life. Neither am I an advocate of perpetual entitlement. But there is a responsibility the government must take, and that responsibility is to take care of those that can’t take care of themselves.

LAWTON: Rodriguez has not endorsed either candidate, but offered the benediction on Tuesday night.

RODRIGUEZ: “Believing that God is not done with America, and America is not done with God…”

LAWTON: Both political conventions traditionally open and close each session with prayer. This year, those prayers turned unusually controversial after Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the US Catholic bishops, agreed to pray at the RNC. He later said he would also be praying at the DNC. Rodriguez says religious leaders shouldn’t shy away from appearing at events like this.

RODRIGUEZ: Our job is to contextualize a prophetic witness, to speak from truth, biblical truth, higher truth, spiritual truth. That transcends politics. With that being said, I think it’s fine if we can speak with integrity to both political parties addressing both platforms as it pertains to the concerns and the values that we hold near and dear.

LAWTON: While most of the faith-based rallying this week was Christian, Republican Jews also pledged to make more inroads in their heavily Democratic community. They say President Obama is particularly vulnerable on his policies toward Israel.

MATT BROOKS (Republican Jewish Coalition): For a segment of the Jewish community, that is a real problem and one of the reasons why we’re seeing a real deterioration of support in the Jewish community for President Obama.

LAWTON: In a tight election, outreach to every group becomes vital. But amid all the mobilization strategies, some said the larger religion story coming out of this convention should not get lost.

RODRIGUEZ: Here we are, America demonstrating to the world that we could have a Mormon president, with a Catholic vice-president, with strong evangelical support. How about that? You know you never could have written that story 20, 30, 40 years ago. But it conveys a message that religious pluralism trumps religious totalitarianism. And this is what makes America great.

LAWTON: I’m Kim Lawton in Tampa.