Faith Digest

Views on voting for a Mormon unchanged. Nearly one American in five says he or she would not vote for a Mormon president, a percentage that hardly has budged since 1967, according to a new Gallup poll. It is unclear how the anti-Mormon inclination will affect Mitt Romney, the presumed GOP presidential nominee, Gallup said, since just 57 percent of Americans know he is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Anti-Mormon attitudes are tied closely to education levels and partisanship, with nearly a quarter of Americans with a high school education or less saying they would not vote for a Mormon. That number decreases to just 7 percent among those with postgraduate degrees. Nine in 10 Republicans and 79 percent of independents said they would vote for a Mormon; just 72 percent of Democrats agreed. Gallup began asking the Mormon question in 1967, when 19 percent said they would not vote for a Mormon presidential candidate. This year, 18 percent said they would not vote for a qualified Mormon candidate, down from 22 percent in 2011. The anti-Mormon bias remains remarkably consistent, according to Gallup, considering that resistance to candidates who are black, Jewish or female has declined markedly since 1967. The Gallup poll is based on telephone interviews conducted June 7-10 with a random sample of 1,004 adults. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Religious donations decline again. Post-recession America is beginning to open its wallet to charities again but is not giving as generously to religious institutions. While charitable donations from individuals rose nearly 4 percent overall in 2011, according to the annual Giving USA report, donations to houses of worship and other religious bodies dropped by 1.7 percent—a decrease for the second year in a row. The report, compiled by the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, shows individual Americans gave nearly $218 billion last year, $96 billion of which went to religious organizations. The proportion of the charitable donations going to religious groups has been falling steadily for decades, said Robert Evans, of Giving USA's editorial review board. Evans offered several reasons for the decline, including increased competition from a proliferating number of nonreligious organizations, a decrease in church attendance and a general lack of sophistication within religious institutions regarding fund-raising.

Evangelicals propose code of ethics. The National Association of Evangelicals is urging pastors to seek a common moral ground by uniting under a consistent code of ethics. NAE leaders said the new code provides uniform guidance to church leaders across the 40 denominations that comprise the nation's largest evangelical group. The code puts into writing ethical guidelines that often go unspoken. Specifics include, among other things, sexual purity, regular financial auditing, not recruiting members from a pastor's former congregation and counseling ethics. A team of ethicists, pastors and denominational leaders working over an 18-month span compiled the code.

—Compiled from Religion News Service