This study is based on an analysis of 49,719 sermons, delivered between April 7 and June 1, 2019, and collected from the websites of 6,431 churches found via the Google Places application programming interface (API), a tool that provides information about establishments, geographic locations or points of interest listed on Google Maps. Pew Research Center […]
Over the decade from 2007 to 2017, government restrictions on religion – laws, policies and actions by state officials that restrict religious beliefs and practices – increased markedly around the world.
Government restrictions by region In 2017, the global median score on the Government Restrictions Index (GRI) remained stable at 2.8 – matching 2016 and staying at its highest point since the study began in 2007 (see Overview). The median score declined in three geographic regions (Middle East-North Africa, the Americas and Asia-Pacific), increased in Europe […]
The new, 116th Congress includes the first two Muslim women ever to serve in the House of Representatives, and is, overall, slightly more religiously diverse than the prior Congress.
More than 15 years after U.S. bishops pledged “zero tolerance” for sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, reports of previously unpublicized misconduct continue to receive wide media coverage.
More than 55 years after the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling striking down school-sponsored prayer, Americans continue to fight over the place of religion in public schools. Questions about religion in the classroom no longer make quite as many headlines as they once did, but the issue remains an important battleground in the broader […]
Giving a share of one’s income to the church has been a part of European tradition for centuries. Today, several countries continue to collect a “church tax” on behalf of officially recognized religious organizations, in some cases levying the tax on all registered members.