Religion & Government

There has long been a consensus that churches should not endorse specific candidates for public office, and a current law known as the Johnson Amendment prohibits them from involvement in political campaigns.

The trappings of religion have long been part of U.S. presidential inaugurations. Here are six facts on the role faith has played in inaugurations.

Pew Research Center President Michael Dimock examines the changes – some profound, some subtle – that the U.S. experienced during Barack Obama’s presidency.

The share of U.S. adults who describe themselves as Christians has been declining for decades, but the U.S. Congress is about as Christian today as it was in the early 1960s.

The U.S. public expresses a clear consensus on the contentious question of whether employers who have religious objections to contraception should be required to provide it in health insurance plans for their employees.

All states prosecute parents whose children come to severe harm through neglect. But in thirty-four states (as well as the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico), there are exemptions in the civil child abuse statutes when medical treatment for a child conflicts with the religious beliefs of parents.

Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia and Turkey had some of the highest levels of religious restrictions in 2014.

Worldwide, both government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion decreased modestly from 2013 to 2014 despite a rise in religion-related terrorism, according to Pew Research Center’s latest annual study on global restrictions on religion.1 Of the 198 countries included in the study, 24% had high or very high levels of government restrictions in […]

Government restrictions on religion and social hostilities related to religion decreased somewhat between 2013 and 2014, the second consecutive year of such declines.

For the National Day of Prayer, we rounded up survey data on Americans’ prayer habits, as well as historical instances of prayer intersecting with the government.