“Will evangelicals turn out in large numbers and be energized as volunteers and financial supporters of Mitt Romney? It just takes a few million evangelicals to choose to not get as actively involved in this race to cost Mitt Romney the presidency,” according to evangelical journalist Warren Cole Smith.

“Mitt Romney has studiously avoided the subject of religion whenever possible. He’s a technocrat. He’s very careful. He’s highly managed in his public presentation. He knows that bringing up Mormonism conjures a host of associations he’d like to avoid.”

“I would say that Mormon culture, Mormon doctrine, Mormon belief have been well outside the mainstream of both American culture and Christian culture for many years.”

"South Carolina is really shaping up as a make or break last stand for social conservatives," says David Gibson of Religion News Service.

Young Mormons are pursuing their educations and careers “not with the purpose of delaying marriage, but with the idea that we want to have a full life that includes all of those things,” says Beverli Jo DeWalt, a single Mormon woman.

"The [Mormon] church has become a worldwide church and its interests now extend far beyond Utah, and it has to meet the expectations of its worldwide audience," says Ron Mortensen, founder of the Utah Coalition on Illegal Immigration.

We talk with Cheri Harder, president of the Trinity Forum and a former congressional policy advisor and White House staffer, as Republican presidential campaigns get under way.

Two religious conservatives offer their views on political involvement, Glenn Beck, evangelical Christianity, and more.

A senior researcher at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life says atheists, agnostics, Jews, and Mormons stand out for their knowledge of world religions other than Christianity, while Mormons and evangelical Protestants do best on questions about the Bible and Christianity.

The issue of same sex marriage has divided not just society at large, says Mormon church scholar Bob Rees. "It's divided churches, it's divided families, and some individuals are divided within themselves."