Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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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. Richard Bushman, an emeritus professor at Columbia University and author of several books about Mormon history, discussed the relationship between The Church of Jesus […]
Baptism of the Holy Spirit: A distinctive experience among pentecostals and charismatics in which the believer receives spiritual gifts and powers, such as speaking in tongues, healing and prophecy. Bilingual: Hispanics who read and speak both English and Spanish, as determined by a series of questions that explore language ability and use. Charismatics: Those Christians […]
More than two-thirds (68%) of Hispanics are Roman Catholics. The next largest category, at 15%, is made up of born-again or evangelical Protestants. Although their numbers are increasing, the share of Latino evangelical Protestants is smaller than it is in either the white or black communities.[1. In this report, the terms “white” and “black” are […]
Twenty years after a landmark Supreme Court decision, Americans are still fighting over the teaching of creationism and other alternatives to evolution in the nation’s schools.
Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925) Guaranteed parents the right to enroll their children in private schools, whether religious or secular. West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) Upheld right of students who were Jehovah’s Witnesses to refuse to salute the American flag, affirming right of students to resist compulsory recitation of official […]
by David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life Twenty years ago, on June 19, 1987, the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling that dramatically reshaped the debate over teaching evolution in public schools. In Edwards v. Aguillard, the high court struck down a Louisiana law requiring that schools teach creation […]
The Supreme Court’s decisions about officially sponsored religious expression in schools consistently draw a distinction between religious activities such as worship or Bible reading, which are designed to inculcate religious sentiments and values, and “teaching about religion,” which is both constitutionally permissible and educationally appropriate. On several occasions, members of the court have suggested that […]