Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
Read our research on:
Two-thirds of U.S. adults who regularly attend religious services say they have heard their clergy speak about at least one political or social issue in the past few months. Of the seven topics we asked about, abortion, Israel and homosexuality were among the most commonly cited.
Sent weekly on Wednesday
All
Publications
Americans largely don’t distinguish between the morality of “homosexuality” and “homosexual behavior,” though some subgroups may, according to a new survey experiment.
Among Trump’s strongest supporters, relatively few people say they think he is very religious. Just 8% of Republicans and 5% of White evangelicals say this is the case.
Majorities in Brazil, Colombia and Peru want leaders who stand up for their religious beliefs. Protestants are especially supportive of Christianity in public life.
Republicans are twice as likely as Democrats to call physician-assisted death morally wrong (48% vs. 23%).
Nine-in-ten Americans say having an affair is wrong. Republicans and Democrats differ sharply on the morality of abortion and homosexuality.
In many other surveyed countries, about half of adults or more see gambling as immoral. This includes 89% in Indonesia, 83% in India and 71% in Italy.
Abortion has long been a contentious issue in the United States, and it is one that sharply divides Americans along partisan, ideological and religious lines.
The global population of Buddhists shrank by roughly 5% between 2010 and 2020, the sole major religious group to decline.
Today, there are millions of Buddhists in the United States, including many who were born to Buddhist families and others who converted into the religion.
Buddhism is the only major religion whose global population shrank between 2010 and 2020. Learn why it declined in East Asia, particularly in Japan and South Korea.
Across 25 countries, Americans are the most likely to see the morality and ethics of people in their country as somewhat or very bad.
Singapore is the world’s most religiously diverse country overall as of 2020, while Yemen is the least diverse. But the U.S. ranks first among nations with very large populations, followed by Nigeria and Russia.
The Christian share of the population, after years of decline, has been relatively stable since 2019. And the religiously unaffiliated population, after rising rapidly for decades, has leveled off – at least temporarily.
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.
