Only one-in-ten Chinese adults formally identify with a religion, but surveys indicate that religion plays a much bigger role in China when the definition is widened to include questions on spirituality, customs and traditional beliefs.
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.
Compared with most other Jewish Americans, Orthodox Jews on average are younger, get married earlier and have bigger families. They also tend to be more religiously observant and more socially and politically conservative.
Nearly 40% of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America, but many people in the region have converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, while some have left organized religion altogether.
Latin America is home to more than 425 million Catholics – nearly 40% of the world’s total Catholic population – and the Roman Catholic Church now has a Latin American pope for the first time in its history. Yet identification with Catholicism has declined throughout the region, according to a major new Pew Research Center […]
The percentage of U.S. Catholics with a strong identification with the Catholic Church was as low in 2012 as it has ever been in General Social Surveys. During the same period, the percentage of Protestants who consider themselves strong members of their faith has been rising.
The world’s Muslims are united in their belief in God and the Prophet Muhammad and are bound together by such religious practices as fasting during Ramadan and almsgiving to assist the needy. But they have widely differing views about other aspects of their faith, including how important religion is to their lives, who counts as a Muslim and what practices are acceptable in Islam.
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