Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Introduction Over the past two decades, the number of Muslims living in Western Europe has steadily grown, rising from less than 10 million in 1990 to approximately 17 million in 2010.[1. Figures are from a forthcoming Pew Forum report that estimates growth rates among Muslim populations worldwide and provides population projections for 2020 and 2030. […]
European campaigns to ban burqas, the Swiss vote to bar new construction of minarets and attempted terrorist acts in the United States have renewed questions and concerns about the compatibility of Islam with Western society. Swiss-born scholar and philosopher of Islam Tariq Ramadan has written and spoken on the subject, generating widespread debate and reaction. […]
The evangelical Christian movement historically has been defined by its members’ distinctive doctrinal standards and practices. Yet in recent years many Americans have come to understand evangelicals more by their political, rather than religious, identity. The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life invited Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, […]
Once he takes office, President-elect Barack Obama will have to navigate a world that has grown highly critical of the United States. Since 2001, the Pew Global Attitudes Project has documented a decline in America’s international image amid widespread opposition to U.S. foreign policy.
Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in December, 2008, for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Vali Nasr, author of the 2006 book, The Shia Revival, surveyed the geo-political landscape of today’s Middle East, arguing that the 2003 invasion of Iraq has fundamentally […]
Washington, D.C. Europeans and Americans approach the relationship between church and state differently. European churches, for instance, often receive official sanction and substantial financial support from the government. In the United States, on the other hand, the government recognizes no church, and whatever aid it provides is usually indirect and substantially more limited. Even ideas […]
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. Philip Jenkins, a Penn State University professor and one of the first scholars to call attention to the rising demographic power of Christians in […]
Pew Research Center Ten years ago, the U.S. Congress launched a debate on U.S. international religious freedom policy that ultimately resulted in the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998. Foreign policy actors continue to debate how religious freedom – and religion itself – should be factored into U.S. foreign policy. Has the State Department interpreted […]