Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Nearly seven-in-ten Americans identify with a religion – higher than the shares seen in several other wealthy countries. Explore our interactive feature to see how the U.S. compares with more than 30 countries on questions about spirituality and religion.
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The July 7 terrorist bombings in London drew considerable public attention and raised fears of another attack in the United States, but these concerns do not translate into less favorable opinions of either Muslim-Americans or Islam. And compared with 2003, fewer now say that Islam is more likely than other religions to encourage violence. The […]
Concerns over Islamic extremism, extensive in the West even before this month’s terrorist attacks in London, are shared to a considerable degree by the publics in several predominantly Muslim nations surveyed.
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s decision to step down from the Supreme Court sets up a possible next chapter in the nation’s culture wars. If the debate over O’Connor’s replacement turns into a referendum on Roe vs. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision establishing a woman’s right to abortion, the argument is likely to galvanize a significant […]
Anti-Americanism in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, which surged as a result of the U.S. war in Iraq, shows modest signs of abating. But the United States remains broadly disliked in most countries surveyed, and the opinion of the American people is not as positive as it once was.
Read the Pew Forum Discussion transcript The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a federal law that aims to protect the religious freedom of inmates and others held in state and local institutions. The unanimous decision in Cutter v. Wilkinson, issued on May 31, reverses […]
Washington, D.C. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life interviewed Dr. J. Peter Pham on June 10, 2005, following a roundtable on “Vatican Foreign Policy in the New Pontificate,” co-sponsored by the Forum and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Pham is the author of Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal […]
Church-State Experts React to Unanimous Ruling The Supreme Court yesterday upheld the constitutionality of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), a federal law that aims to protect the religious freedom of inmates and others held in state and local institutions. The unanimous decision in Cutter v. Wilkinson reverses a ruling by the […]
Key West, Florida Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Florida, in May 2005 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle conference on religion, politics and public life. Conference speaker Reuel Marc Gerecht, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Middle East specialist for the CIA, argued that […]
Key West, Florida Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Florida, in May 2005 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle conference on religion, politics and public life. Conference speaker John DiIulio, a University of Pennsylvania professor and former director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, discussed the […]
After years of decline, the U.S. Christian share now shows signs of leveling off. The new Religious Landscape Study explores trends in identity, beliefs and practices.
The Global Religious Futures (GRF) project is jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and The John Templeton Foundation. Here are some big-picture findings from the GRF, together with context from other Pew Research Center studies.
Belief in an afterlife, God and spirits in nature is widespread globally. Older adults are more likely than younger adults to believe in God.
Majorities want the church to allow use of birth control and IVF, and to permit priests to bless same-sex couples. But views differ by Mass attendance.
