Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Read our research on:
From its origin on the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century C.E., Islam has grown into a worldwide religion with more than 1.6 billion adherents – nearly a quarter of the world’s population.1 Today, Muslims live on all inhabited continents and embody a wide range of races, ethnicities and cultures. What beliefs and practices unite […]
American Muslims, like Muslims in other countries, overwhelmingly accept certain core religious beliefs, such as the conviction that there is one God and that Muhammad is His Prophet. However, U.S. Muslims tend to be less observant than Muslims in many countries surveyed when it comes to practices such as daily prayer and mosque attendance. Moreover, […]
But Catholic Voters Back Obama on Social Issues Washington, D.C. – Today, the provision of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act that offers free contraception to women on employer health care plans goes into effect, though many religious institutions have a one-year reprieve. Catholics who are aware of U.S. bishops’ concerns about restrictions on religious […]
Wendy Cadge is an associate professor of sociology at Brandeis University. Her research focuses on religion in the U.S., especially its relationship to immigration, health care and sexuality. She is the author of the books “Heartwood: The First Generation of Theravada Buddhism in America” and “Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine.” Hien Duc […]
Obama Endorsement Has Limited Impact Washington, D.C. – Reports that the Democratic Party may add support for gay marriage to its party platform are in keeping with a significant shift of opinion on this issue among Democrats nationwide. Just four years ago, in 2008, only half (50%) of Democrats favored allowing gays and lesbians to […]
Washington,D.C. – As theirnumbers rise, Asian Americans have been largely responsible for the growth ofnon-Abrahamic faiths in the U.S., particularly Buddhism and Hinduism. Countedtogether, Buddhists and Hindus now account for about the same share of the U.S.public as Jews (roughly 2%). At the same time, most Asian Americans belong tothe country’s two largest religious groups: […]
Roughly a third of Asian Americans (32%) now belong to a religious tradition different from the one in which they were raised. By comparison, the Pew Forum’s 2007 “U.S. Religious Landscape Survey” found that 28% of all U.S. adults belong to a religion that is different from their childhood faith.30 Japanese, Chinese and Korean Americans […]