Pope Benedict XVI and the Obama administration generated the most religion-related coverage in the U.S. press in 2009. The pope, though he made no visits to the United States last year, was the subject of two of the top 10 religion stories, while the Obama administration accounted for three of the top 10 religion-focused storylines […]
Note: For a more recent overview of the Census Bureau’s history of asking about religion, read this April 2023 article. The U.S. Census Bureau has not asked questions about religion since the 1950s, but the federal government did gather some information about religion for about a century before that. Starting in 1850, census takers began […]
Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in December 2008 for the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life to look at the impact of religious voters in the 2008 election. John Green, a senior fellow in religion and […]
Updated Nov. 10, 20081 President-elect Barack Obama made a concerted effort to reach out to people of faith during the 2008 presidential campaign, and early exit polls show that this outreach may have paid off on Election Day. Among nearly every religious group, the Democratic candidate received equal or higher levels of support compared with […]
Washington, D.C. A variety of religious voices have been prominent in the 2008 presidential campaign to date, and to the surprise of many observers, these voices include religious activists with liberal and progressive perspectives. They describe a growing movement focused on justice and the common good. Where did this movement come from, and how might […]
Washington, D.C. The Pew Forum invited Mass. Sen. John Kerry to discuss the propriety of public inquiry into politicians’ religious beliefs and how those beliefs influence candidates’ views on the issues of the day. Kerry, a 2004 presidential candidate, also addressed the role of faith in presidential campaigns, his perspective on religion in the 2008 […]
In a new series of occasional reports, “Religion and the Courts: The Pillars of Church-State Law,” the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life explores the complex, fluid relationship between government and religion. Among the issues to be examined are religion in public schools, displays of religious symbols on public property, conflicts concerning the free […]
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees that the federal government will respect the “free exercise” of religion. But the precise meaning of “free exercise” and exactly what constitutes an infringement of this right are not clear-cut. At the heart of the debate is one basic question: Do individuals or groups professing sincerely held […]
by Robert Ruby, Senior Editor, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life It was famously a six-day war, and in varying guises the conflict has so far lasted another 40 years. For six days, beginning June 5, 1967, Israel battled Egypt, Jordan and Syria. As a result of the fighting, Israel won control of the […]
Key West, Florida Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in May 2007 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Philip Jenkins, a Penn State University professor and one of the first scholars to call attention to the rising demographic power of Christians in […]