Hot news on the religion beat in 2012

The bottom line: If Barack Obama won a second White House term, this would be yet another sign that the reign of the Antichrist is near.

Inquiring minds wanted to know if the leader of the highly symbolic First Baptist Church of Dallas was suggesting that the president was truly You Know Anti-who.

"I want you to hear me tonight: I am not saying that President Obama is the Antichrist. I am not saying that at all," said Jeffress, who previously made headlines during a national rally of conservative politicos by calling Mormonism a "theological cult."

"President Obama is not the Antichrist. But what I am saying is this: The course he is choosing to lead our nation is paving the way for the future reign of the Antichrist."

That's pretty strong rhetoric, until one considers how hot things got on the religion-and-politics beat in 2012. After all, one Gallup poll found that an amazing 44 percent of Americans surveyed responded "don't know" when asked to identify the president's faith.

The good news was that a mere 11 percent in that poll said Obama is a Muslim -- down from 18 percent in a Pew Research Center poll in 2010. The president has, of course, repeatedly professed that he is a liberal, mainline Christian.

Could church-state affairs get any hotter?

Amazingly the answer was "yes," with a White House order requiring most religious institutions to offer health-care plans covering sterilizations and all FDA-approved forms of contraception, including so-called "morning-after pills."

The key: The Health and Human Services mandate only recognizes the conscience rights of a nonprofit group if it has the "inculcation of religious values as its purpose," primarily employs "persons who share its religious tenets" and primarily "serves persons who share its religious tenets."

America's Catholic bishops and other traditional religious leaders cried foul, claiming that under the leadership of Obama, the U.S. Justice Department and other branches of the national government were trying to separate "freedom of worship" in religious sanctuaries from the First Amendment's more sweeping protection of "free exercise of religion" in public life.

In a year packed with church-state fireworks, the members of the Religion Newswriters Association selected this religious-liberty clash as the year's top religion news story. Meanwhile, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, the point man for Catholic opposition to the mandate, was voted the year's top religion newsmaker -- from a ballot that did not contain the president's name.