Keep Your Christian Chocolate Out of Our Peanut Butter Politics

Ok I know the title is crazy, but I'm glad this is out there.

For the first time in forever, there's a push away from the foolishness of religious groups' involvement and influence social and political issues.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey found that 52% said churches should stay quiet, while 46 percent said churches should express political views.

Other gems:

• Among people who said gay marriage was a very important issue, the number saying houses of worship should keep out of politics doubled, from 25 percent to 50 percent. Among those who said it was not important, the number was essentially unchanged.

• Respondents were also more likely to say houses of worship should not meddle in politics if they considered the major political parties to be hostile to religion.

• The number of people who think religious groups have too much influence over political parties grew -- for both Republicans and Democrats -- as did the percentage of people who are uncomfortable hearing politicians talk about how religious they are.

Although the results are slim, there's truly a change coming. Now if we can get our churches to focus on real issues like social change, hunger, global awareness, maybe I would start believing again.