With a Mormon candidate among the front-runners for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination, a musical about Mormons playing on Broadway and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints (LDS) running television ads about ordinary Mormons, America is in the midst of what some media accounts have dubbed a “Mormon moment.” 

A major new survey explores how Mormons themselves feel about the media spotlight, the election campaign and their place in America. The survey finds a mixed picture: Many Mormons feel they are misunderstood, discriminated against and not accepted by other Americans as part of mainstream society. Yet, at the same time, a majority of Mormons think that acceptance of Mormonism is rising. Overwhelmingly, they are satisfied with their lives and content with their communities. And most say they think the country is ready to elect a Mormon president.

These are among the findings of a comprehensive survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life of more than 1,000 Mormons across the country – the first of its kind ever published by a non-LDS research organization. Previous studies, including the Pew Forum’s 2007 U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, have found that Mormons make up slightly less than 2% of the U.S. public.

See an infographic summarizing the results and read the full report for findings on these subjects:

• Reactions to the “Mormon Moment”
• Religious beliefs and practices
• Mormons and family life
• Politics, society and morality

This apparent stability, however, masks a momentous shift. Although Europe and the Americas still are home to a majority of the world’s Christians (63%), that share is much lower than it was in 1910 (93%). And the proportion of Europeans and Americans who are Christian has dropped from 95% in 1910 to 76% in 2010 in Europe as a whole, and from 96% to 86% in the Americas as a whole. At the same time, Christianity has grown enormously in subSaharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, where there were relatively few Christians at the beginning of the 20th century.

These are some of the key findings of Global Christianity: A Report on the Size and Distribution of the World’s Christian Population, a new study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Read the full report for more details on these subjects:

• Countries in which Christians live as majorities and minorities
• A breakdown of the different Christian traditions and where their biggest populations live
• Regional distribution of Christians
• Christian movements and denominations

Other features:

How much do you know about Christianity around the world? Take our quiz.

View our interactive map to see the size of the Christian population around the world, in a region or in a country.

A: The numbers are debated. Media reports, sometimes citing officials of the Coptic Orthodox Church, frequently say that Christians make up 10% or more of the country’s approximately 80 million people. But researchers at the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life have been unable to find any Egyptian census or large-scale survey that substantiates such claims.

The highest share reported in the past century was in 1927, when the census found that 8.3% of Egyptians were Christians. In each of seven subsequent censuses, the Christian share of the population gradually shrank, ending at 5.7% in 1996. Religion data has not been made available from Egypt’s most recent census, conducted in 2006. But in a large, nationally representative 2008 survey — the Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey, conducted among 16,527 women ages 15 to 49 — about 5% of the respondents were Christian. Thus, the best available census and survey data indicate that Christians now number roughly 5% of the Egyptian population, or about 4 million people. The Pew Forum’s recent report on The Future of the Global Muslim Population estimated that approximately 95% of Egyptians were Muslims in 2010.

Of course, it is possible that Christians in Egypt have been undercounted in censuses and demographic surveys. According to the Pew Forum’s analysis of Global Restrictions on Religion, Egypt has very high government restrictions on religion as well as high social hostilities involving religion. (Most recently, a bombing outside a church in Alexandria during a New Year’s Eve Mass killed 23 people and wounded more than 90.) These factors may lead some Christians, particularly converts from Islam, to be cautious about revealing their identity. Government records may also undercount Christians. According to news reports, for example, some Egyptian Christians have complained that they are listed on official identity cards as Muslims.

Even if they are undercounts, the census and survey data suggest that Christians have been steadily declining as a proportion of Egypt’s population in recent decades. One reason is that Christian fertility has been lower than Muslim fertility — that is, Christians have been having fewer babies per woman than Muslims in Egypt. Conversion to Islam may also be a factor, though reliable data on conversion rates are lacking. It is possible that Christians have left the country in disproportionate numbers, but ongoing efforts by the Pew Forum to tally the religious affiliation of migrants around the world have not found evidence of an especially large Egyptian Christian diaspora. For example, in the United States, Canada and Australia, the majority of Egyptian-born residents are Christian, but the estimated total size of the Egyptian-born Christian populations in these countries is approximately 160,000. In contrast, there are more than 2 million Egyptian-born people living in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, the overwhelming majority of whom are likely to be Muslims.

Most, but not all, Christians in Egypt belong to the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. Minority Christian groups include the Coptic Catholic Church and assorted Protestant churches.

Here are some sources you might want to consult for further information on the subject:

• Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey
• Campo, Juan E. and John Iskander (2006), “The Coptic Community” in The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions, edited by Mark Juergensmeyer.
• Courbage, Youssef and Philippe Fargues (1997), Christians and Jews under Islam, I.B. Tauris & Co. Translated by Judy Mabro.
• Ambrosetti, Elana and Nahid Kamal (2008), “The Relationship between Religion and Fertility: The Case of Bangladesh and Egypt.” Paper presented at the 2008 European Population Conference.
• Egypt population
• World Religion Database, historical Egyptian census data.
• Integrated Public Use Microdata Series International, 1996 Egyptian census data

Conrad Hackett, Demographer, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life

It would be incorrect to state that “most” Christians do not view Mormonism as a Christian religion. A 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center reported that a majority of Catholics (52%) say that Mormons are Christian; 29% say they are not. Among all Protestants, more say Mormonism is a Christian religion than say it is not by a 49%-to-34% margin. This includes 62% of white mainline Protestants who say Mormons are Christians.

Of the major Christian groups, white evangelical Protestants are the most likely to say Mormonism is not a Christian religion: 45% say Mormons are not Christians, while 40% say they are Christians.

While many Christians see Mormonism as a Christian religion, most Christians do not see their faith having much in common with Mormonism. Among all non-Mormon Americans who express a religious preference (most of whom are Christians themselves), fully 62% say that Mormonism and their own religion are “very different.” This opinion is held by 67% of white evangelical Protestants, 61% of white non-Hispanic Catholics and 56% of white mainline Protestants.

For more details about public attitudes toward Mormons, see these reports and commentaries from the 2007 survey:

“Public Expresses Mixed Views of Islam, Mormonism,” Sept. 25, 2007

“Clinton and Giuliani Seen as Not Highly Religious; Romney’s Religion Raises Concerns,” Sept. 6, 2007

“Public Opinion About Mormons,” Dec. 4, 2007