(By Michael Lipka, Pew Research Center). Perhaps the most striking trend in American religion in recent years has been the growing percentage of adults who do not identify with a religious group. And the vast majority of these religious “ nones ” (78%) say they were raised as a member of a particular religion before shedding their…
(By Frank Newport, Gallup.com). Religion remains an integral part of most Americans’ lives, but Gallup’s ongoing research shows how this has changed over time. The following are five important findings about religion in the U.S.: 1. America remains a largely Christian nation, although less so than in the past. Seventy-four percent of Americans identify with…
By Bob Smietana, LifeWay. Americans who don’t go to church are happy to talk about religion and often think about the meaning of life. They’re open to taking part in community service events hosted at a church or going to a church concert. But only about a third say they’d go to a worship service,…
By Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, Christianity Today. The more you go to church, the less likely you are to see science and religion as incompatible, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey. Half of Americans who attend religious services weekly said science and religion are often in conflict, less than the 54 percent who attend…
By the Pew Research Center. The religious profile of the world is rapidly changing, driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world’s major religions, as well as by people switching faiths. Over the next four decades, Christians will remain the largest religious group, but Islam will grow…
By Diane Stafford Religious organizations received 31 percent of the $335.17 billion worth of American philanthropy last year, by far the biggest slice of the charitable giving pie. But that nonprofit sector shouldn’t rest easy, says Patrick Rooney, chief researcher for the annual Giving USA report on philanthropy released (last month). Religion’s share of total…
By William McKenzie (CNN) – Early on the morning of November 28, 2007, Jia Weihan was forced to think the unthinkable: Was her father really a bad man? At the time, she was an 11-year-old attending a school in Beijing that taught her to respect the communist authorities. When 30 or so police officers arrived…
By Mark A. Kellner America remains one of the world’s most positive about the role of religion in everyday life, a new survey reveals. According to a global survey of the impact of religion by WIN/Gallup International, 62 percent of U.S. respondents say religion plays a positive role in the country. Subtract the 29 percent…
By Ed Koster I graduated from Seminary 40 years ago, well equipped to distinguish between Presbyterians and Baptists and Methodists and Pentecostals and Episcopalians… Not that it was ever necessary to do so, for the prevailing mood at the time (certainly among Presbyterians) was that the very existence of all these denominations amounted to something…
By World Evangelical Alliance The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) is deeply concerned about the large-scale human suffering in the Central African Republic (CAR) with thousands being killed, up to 1 million people displaced and half of the population in need of humanitarian assistance. However, the WEA is also concerned that national and international media have…