Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Religion

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    New Pew Forum Report Analyzes Religious Restrictions Around the World

    Three-Year Study Finds One-Third of Global Population Experiences An Increase Washington,D.C. — More than2.2 billion people, nearly a third (32%) of the world’s total population of 6.9billion, live in countries where either government restrictions on religion orsocial hostilities involving religion rose substantially between mid-2006 andmid-2009, according to a new study on global restrictions on religion […]

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    New Pew Forum Survey Explores Views of Evangelical Protestant Leaders Around the World

    Washington,D.C. — In a new surveyby the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, most evangelicalProtestant leaders who live in the Global South (58%) say that evangelicalChristians are gaining influence on life in their countries. By contrast, most leaders who live in the Global North (66%)say that, in the societies in which they […]

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    Global Survey of Evangelical Protestant Leaders

    Evangelical Protestant leaders who live in the Global South generally are optimistic about the prospects for evangelicalism in their countries: 71% expect that five years from now the state of evangelicalism in their countries will be better than it is today. But those who live in the Global North expect that the state of evangelicalism in their countries will either stay about the same (21%) or worsen (33%) over the next five years.

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    National Day of Prayer

    A federal appeals court recently overturned a lower court ruling that had declared the National Day of Prayer to be unconstitutional. The day of prayer, established by Congress in 1952, occurs annually on the first Thursday in May, which this year falls on May 5.

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    Churches in Court

    Whenever churches or religious organizations find themselves involved in civil litigation, courts first must determine whether the First Amendment’s religion clauses bestow a unique legal status on religious organizations that puts some of their decisions and actions beyond the reach of civil laws.

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    Religion and the Courts: The Pillars of Church-State Law

    In an ongoing 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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    Religion in the News: Islam Was No. 1 Topic in 2010

    Events and controversies related to Islam dominated U.S. press coverage of religion in 2010, bumping the Catholic Church from the top spot, according to a new study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

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    The Tea Party and Religion

    A new analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that Tea Party supporters tend to have conservative opinions not just about economic matters, but also about social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

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    Resources on Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa

    Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa, a 19-country survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, reveals that the vast majority of people in many sub-Saharan African nations are deeply committed to Christianity or Islam, and yet many continue to practice elements of traditional African religions.