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.
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.
There has been a modest drop in overall rates of belief in God and participation in religious practices. But religiously affiliated Americans are as observant as before.
Nearly 40% of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America, but many people in the region have converted from Catholicism to Protestantism, while some have left organized religion altogether.
According to a survey of professional prison chaplains, America’s state penitentiaries are a bustle of religious activity. Chaplains say that efforts by inmates to convert other inmates are common and that at least some religious switching occurs. And chaplains overwhelmingly consider religion-based programming an important aspect of rehabilitating prisoners.
Members of the post-communist generation offer much more positive evaluations of the political and economic changes their countries have undergone over the past two decades than do those who were adults when communism collapsed.
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