The gender gap in churches is growing, with young men and women differing on social and moral issues. In the Substack newsletter American Storylines, pollster Daniel Cox analyzes the recent 2024 Pew Religious Landscape Survey and finds that more than 6 in 10 (61 percent) young Christian women say abortion should be legal in all […]
Both in the U.S. and the UK, surveys on religion are showing some stability, even an uptick in spiritual and religious interest and involvement in the case of the latter. The Pew Research Center’s latest Religious Landscape Study (RLS) found that after many years of decline, the share of Americans who identify as Christians shows […]
Homeschooled young people are the most religiously active of any other kinds of college students, followed closely by parochial school students, according to political scientist Ryan Burge in his Substack newsletter Graphs about Religion (January 20). There is no central database for homeschoolers, but estimates suggest that their number ranges from 1.9 to 2.7 million […]
Current Research Homosexuality is becoming rarer in the American Catholic priesthood and can be expected to be cut in half over the next 20 years, according to a study published in the Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion (20:8). Homosexuality has been widely documented as being more prevalent in the Catholic priesthood than in the […]
In 2023, there were a recorded 2,444 anti-Christian hate crimes documented by police and civil society in 35 European countries, including 232 personal attacks, such as harassment, threats and physical violence, according to a report from the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians (OIDAC). At least 2,000 Christian places of worship were damaged in […]
While voting patterns among religious believers have held steady in recent elections, there was less support for President-elect Donald Trump among Protestants compared to 2020. RW was going to press as the election results came out, and we will undoubtedly report more on the election and the upcoming Trump presidency in the next issue. In […]
■ While there is less opposition to the prospect of an atheist president, especially as the stigma of atheism has decreased in recent years, partisanship and religiosity may still keep voters from electing even patriotic candidates if they don’t profess a faith, a new study finds. In an article in the Journal for the […]
■ A study of campus ministries in the U.S. finds that today’s college students are less likely to be seeking spiritual experiences and teachings in joining these ministries than looking for “a home away from home” that provides a source of social support. The five-year study, directed by John Schmalzbauer at the University of Missouri, […]
■ Recent church planting efforts tend to be near each other and are concentrated in Northeastern and West Coast areas as well as Florida and Texas, a new analysis finds. In his newsletter Graphs about Religion (July 25), Ryan Burge discusses the results of his study of two leading church planting networks, Acts 29 and […]
■ American women have recently been showing high rates of disaffiliation from religion, although they are still more likely to stay in their childhood religion compared to men. In his newsletter Graphs About Religion (June 27), Ryan Burge reports that the gender gap on religion remains. “In recent decades, evangelical retention was about four points […]
