Publications

For many Christians, Easter is the most important religious holiday of the year – a time to celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ and look forward to the Second Coming. According to a 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People & […]

American Atheists, a group that advocates on behalf of atheists in the U.S., will hold its national convention later this month. According to the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, 5% of American adults say they do not believe in God or a universal spirit, […]

Members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, two mainline Protestant denominations, are considering whether to allow the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians as members of their clergy. The U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that majorities of […]

Contrary to recent media reports suggesting that the country’s economic troubles have led to higher levels of church attendance, a Pew Forum analysis of polls by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press finds that while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has shed over half its value since October 2007, there has […]

In a Feb. 24 address to Congress, President Barack Obama vowed to tackle the problems at the root of the nation’s faltering economy. While there is general agreement among religious groups that strengthening the economy should be a top policy priority for the government, people of different faiths are divided in their support for addressing […]

March is Women’s History Month. A new analysis of data from the U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that women are more religious than men on a variety of measures. Data: Pew Forum U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, conducted in 2007, released in 2008. * […]

The U.S. Religious Landscape Surveyfinds that more than one-in-four (27%) American adults who are married or living with a partner are in religiously mixed relationships. If people from different Protestant denominational families are included – for example, a marriage between a Methodist and a Lutheran – nearly four-in-ten (37%) couples are religiously mixed. The survey, […]

In advance of the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday on Feb. 12, 2009, the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life recently released a research package exploring the evolution controversy in the U.S. The Pew Forum’s U.S. Religious Landscape Survey found that views on evolution differ widely across religious groups. Source: Pew […]

Updated February 3, 2014  1809 Charles Darwin is born to a wealthy family in Shropshire, England.  1831 Darwin begins a five-year voyage as a ship’s naturalist on the HMS Beagle. His observations of scientific phenomena, particularly the wildlife on the Galapagos Islands, lead Darwin to form his theory on the origin and development of life. […]

A 2008 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press and the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life found that while Americans generally support allowing religious groups to apply for government funding to provide social services, they draw the line at letting such organizations hire only people who […]