More babies were born to Christian mothers than to members of any other religion in recent years. Less than 20 years from now, however, the number of babies born to Muslims is expected to modestly exceed births to Christians.

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. This is the fourth time Pew Research Center has analyzed restrictions on religion in a calendar year. Earlier reports […]

Standard lists of history’s most influential religious leaders – among them Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) – tend to be predominantly, if not exclusively, male. Many religious groups, including Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews, allow only men to be clergy, while others, including some denominations in the evangelical Protestant tradition, have lifted that restriction only in recent decades. Yet it often appears that the ranks of the faithful are dominated by women.

As of 2010, nearly a third of the world’s population identified as Christian. But if demographic trends persist, Islam will close the gap by the middle of the 21st century.