Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Across the U.S., religious courts operate on a routine, everyday basis. How do some of the country’s major Christian traditions and other religions – including Islam, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism – decide internal matters and apply their religious laws?
Background 1. Where do the restrictions on religious organizations’ participation in the political process come from? The Internal Revenue Code prohibits intervention in political campaigns by organizations that are exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3), including religious organizations. To qualify for 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status under the Internal Revenue Code, an organization must meet […]
Washington, D.C. – The world’s 1.6 billion Muslims are united in their belief in God and the Prophet Muhammad and are bound together by such religious practices as fasting during the holy month of Ramadan and almsgiving to assist people in need. But they have widely differing views about many other aspects of their faith, […]
Between mid-2009 and mid-2010, religious restrictions rose not only in countries that began the year with high or very high restrictions, such as Indonesia and Nigeria, but also in many countries that began with low or moderate restrictions, such as Switzerland and the United States. The report looks at restrictions due to government actions as well as acts of violence and intimidation by private individuals, organizations and social groups.
This is the third time the Pew Forum has measured restrictions on religion around the globe.8 This report, which includes data through the year ending in mid-2010, follows the same methodology as the Pew Forum’s December 2009 report, “Global Restrictions on Religion,” and its August 2011 report, “Rising Restrictions on Religion,” with one major difference: […]
Christians make up the largest single religious group within the Asian-American community, but the Christian share of U.S. Asians (42%) is far smaller than the Christian share of the U.S. general public (75%). Only two of the six largest country-of-origin groups are majority Christian: Filipino Americans (89% Christian) and Korean Americans (71% Christian). Among other […]
The number of Americans who do not identify with any religion continues to grow at a rapid pace. One-fifth of the U.S. public – and a third of adults under 30 – are religiously unaffiliated today, the highest percentages ever in Pew Research Center polling.
People are on the move, and so are their faiths. The total number of international migrants living around the world has grown substantially over the past 50 years, climbing from about 80 million people (or 2.6% of the world’s population) in 1960 to about 214 million (or roughly 3% of the world’s population) in 2010, […]
Spotlight on the United States The United States is often described as “a nation of immigrants,” a phrase coined by John F. Kennedy in an essay written in 1958 when he was the junior senator from Massachusetts.8 As the future president wrote, “This was the secret of America: a nation of people with the fresh […]