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Religion

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  • fact sheet

    Religion in the Public Schools

    In a new series of occasional reports, “Religion and the Courts: The Pillars of Church-State Law,” the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life explores the complex, fluid relationship between government and religion. Among the issues to be examined are religion in public schools, displays of religious symbols on public property, conflicts concerning the free […]

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    School Graduations, Religion and the Courts

    Spring is the season for school graduations, and graduation ceremonies play a featured role in the national debate over the place of religion in public education. Is a clergyman’s benediction at a public school event a violation of the separation of church and state? Can students lead a prayer at their school commencement? In a […]

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    International Religious Freedom: Religion and International Diplomacy

    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 […]

  • report

    Can Secular Democracy Survive in Turkey?

    by Robert Ruby, Senior Editor, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life By nominating an observant Muslim for the Turkish presidency, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan inadvertently highlighted deep-rooted tensions about the role of religion in the nation’s political life. These tensions were already evident in recent Pew Global Attitudes surveys that found growing doubts […]

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    Changing Faiths: Latinos and the Transformation of American Religion

    A joint survey by the Pew Hispanic Project and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life Executive Summary Hispanics are transforming the nation’s religious landscape, especially the Catholic Church, not only because of their growing numbers but also because they are practicing a distinctive form of Christianity. Religious expressions associated with the pentecostal and […]

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    Religion and the Presidential Vote: A Tale of Two Gaps

    by John C. Green, Senior Fellow in Religion and American Politics For the presidential candidates and the pundits who write about them, one concern in the 2008 campaign is the “religion gap” – shorthand for the religious differences between Republican and Democratic voters. An analysis of national exit polls from 2004 shows there is not […]

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    High Court Decision Could Raise Abortion’s Profile in Campaign

    by David Masci, Senior Research Fellow, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life Wednesday’s 5-4 Supreme Court decision upholding a federal law banning a controversial abortion procedure may dramatically raise abortion’s visibility in the presidential election campaign. The ruling, a victory for anti-abortion advocates, will almost certainly energize both sides in the abortion debate and […]

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    Pope to Visit ’Pentecostalized’ Brazil

    April 19, 2007 Updated: May 9, 2007 by Luis Lugo, Director, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life When Pope Benedict XVI landed in São Paulo’s Guarulhos International Airport on May 9, he entered a religious landscape very different from the one that confronted his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, on his first visit to […]

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Signature Reports

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Line chart showing U.S. religiousness has been fairly stable since 2020

Religion Holds Steady in America

Analysis of our polls and other data shows no clear evidence of a religious revival among young adults. Read more about religiousness by age and gender.

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Key Findings From the Global Religious Futures Project

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.