Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Seven ordained ministers hold seats in the new Congress – one more than the number in the very first U.S. Congress (1789-1791).[1. Figures for the number of clergy serving in the first Congress come from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia.] But because Congress was a much smaller body in the late 18th century than […]
More than nine-in-ten members of the newly elected 114th Congress are Christian — a significantly higher share than is seen in the general population. However, many other major religious groups are represented in the body, including Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus and the unaffiliated.
An unusually active lame duck session enabled the 113th Congress to avoid its predecessor’s record for legislative unproductivity.
Following the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on post-9/11 CIA interrogation practices, 51% of Americans say these CIA methods were justified, compared with 29% who say they were not.
The analysis in this report is based on telephone interviews conducted December 11-14, 2014 among a national sample of 1,001 adults, 18 years of age or older, living in the continental United States (500 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 501 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 306 who had no landline […]
Most Americans favor allowing religious displays like nativity scenes to be placed on government property.
Of the 64 countries in this category, about half have Christian symbols (48%) and about a third include Islamic religious symbols (33%).
Latin America is home to more than 425 million Catholics – nearly 40% of the world’s total Catholic population – and the Roman Catholic Church now has a Latin American pope for the first time in its history. Yet identification with Catholicism has declined throughout the region, according to a major new Pew Research Center […]
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.
