Why the U.S. census doesn’t ask Americans about their religion
The Census Bureau has collected data on Americans’ income, race, ethnicity, housing and other things, but it has never directly asked about their religion.
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Read our research on:
Religion
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How the Pandemic Has Affected Attendance at U.S. Religious Services
During the pandemic, a stable share of U.S. adults have been participating in religious services in some way – either virtually or in person – but in-person attendance is slightly lower than it was before COVID-19. Among Americans surveyed across several years, the vast majority described their attendance habits in roughly the same way in both 2019 and 2022.
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Anti-Jewish harassment occurred in 94 countries in 2020, up from earlier years
Incidents against Jewish people in 2020 ranged from verbal and physical assaults to vandalism of cemeteries and scapegoating for the pandemic.
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Americans Feel More Positive Than Negative About Jews, Mainline Protestants, Catholics
Most U.S. adults are neutral toward several religious groups, though Americans tend to rate their own religious group positively. More than a third of Americans hold unfavorable views of multiple religious groups.
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Religiously unaffiliated people face harassment in a growing number of countries
Religiously unaffiliated people were harassed by governments, private groups or both in 27 countries in 2020.
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Faith on the Hill
While there has been a decades-long decline in the Christian share of U.S. adults, 88% of the voting members in the new 118th Congress identify as Christian. That is only a few points lower than their share in the late 1970s.
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Key Findings From the Global Religious Futures Project
The Global Religious Futures (GRF) project is jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and The John Templeton Foundation. Here are some big-picture findings from the GRF, together with context from other Pew Research Center studies.
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About four-in-ten U.S. adults believe humanity is ‘living in the end times’
58% of U.S. adults say they do not believe “we are living in the end times” – the destruction of the world as we know it.
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Younger evangelicals in the U.S. are more concerned than their elders about climate change
Evangelical Protestant adults under 40 are more likely than older evangelicals to say climate change is an extremely or very serious problem.
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Growing share of Americans see the Supreme Court as ‘friendly’ toward religion
There has been a jump in the share of U.S. adults who see the Supreme Court as “friendly” toward religion.
