Worldwide, both government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion decreased modestly from 2013 to 2014 despite a rise in religion-related terrorism, according to Pew Research Center’s latest annual study on global restrictions on religion.1 Of the 198 countries included in the study, 24% had high or very high levels of government restrictions in […]
A new Pew Research Center study of the ways religion influences the daily lives of Americans finds that people who are highly religious are more engaged with their extended families, more likely to volunteer, more involved in their communities and generally happier with the way things are going in their lives.
Standard lists of history’s most influential religious leaders – among them Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) – tend to be predominantly, if not exclusively, male. Many religious groups, including Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews, allow only men to be clergy, while others, including some denominations in the evangelical Protestant tradition, have lifted that restriction only in recent decades. Yet it often appears that the ranks of the faithful are dominated by women.
There are deep divisions in Israeli society over political values and religion's role in public life -- not only between Jews and the Arab minority, but also among the religious subgroups that make up Israeli Jewry.
Half of Americans say the next president should be careful not to criticize Islam as a whole when speaking about Islamic extremists, while four-in-ten want the next president to speak bluntly about Islamic extremists even if the statements are critical of Islam as a whole.
GOP contender Donald Trump is not widely viewed as religious, even among Republicans. And the share of Americans who say Hillary Clinton is not a religious person has risen sharply since she first ran for president eight years ago.
There has been a modest drop in overall rates of belief in God and participation in religious practices. But religiously affiliated Americans are as observant as before.
When Pope Francis arrives in the U.S., he will find a Catholic public that is remarkably accepting of a variety of non-traditional families, according to a new survey on family life, sexuality and Catholic identity.
A solid majority of U.S. Catholics believe that Earth is warming. But climate change is a highly politicized issue that sharply divides American Catholics, like the U.S. public as a whole, mainly along political party lines.
The Christian share of the U.S. population is declining, while the share of Americans who do not identify with any organized religion is growing. These changes affect all regions in the country and many demographic groups.