Professor Wilfred McClay argues that America’s particular brand of secularism, together with some features of Christianity, have produced a unique if imperfect mingling of religion and government in the country’s public life.
Pew Forum Faith Angle Conference Key West, Florida Watch more event video on the multimedia page. More from the December 2007 Faith Angle Conference Religious Literacy: What Every American Should Know The Religion Factor in the 2008 Election More: Research, news, blogs Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Fla., in December, […]
by David Masci, Senior Research Fellow Oct. 1 marks the 50th anniversary of the appearance of “In God We Trust” on the paper currency of the United States. The phrase, which is the nation’s official motto as well, has been caught in a broader debate over just how high the wall separating church and state […]
by Robert Ruby, Senior Editor, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life By nominating an observant Muslim for the Turkish presidency, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan inadvertently highlighted deep-rooted tensions about the role of religion in the nation’s political life. These tensions were already evident in recent Pew Global Attitudes surveys that found growing doubts […]
Forty years after a Time cover famously asked, "Is God Dead?" polls find the Almighty thriving in the nation's collective consciousness.
Introduction December 9, 2005, marks the 100th anniversary of secularism in France, known as “laïcité.” In 1905 the French government passed a law stipulating “the separation of churches and the state,” thus enshrining secularism as a national principle. The law, which barred the state from officially recognizing, funding or endorsing religious groups, represented a major […]
Key West, Florida Some of the nation’s leading journalists gathered in Key West, Florida, in December 2005 for the Pew Forum’s biannual Faith Angle Conference on religion, politics and public life. Conference speaker Grace Davie, who has a chair in the Sociology of Religion at the University of Exeter and is the director of the […]
Pew Research Center Washington, D.C. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life and the Council on Foreign Relations co-hosted a luncheon roundtable entitled “Secular Europe and Religious America: Implications for Transatlantic Relations” on April 21, 2005 at the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. According to a 2002 Pew Global Attitudes survey, there are […]
Pew Forum Dialogues on Religion & Public Life E.J. Dionne Jr., Jean Bethke Elshtain, Kayla Drogosz, Series Editors Executive Summary (.pdf) Read about the Pew Forum Dialogues Series The United States has been described as a nation with the soul of a church. Religion is discussed more explicitly and more urgently in American politics than […]
Court Overturns Lower Court Ruling on Legal Technicality The Supreme Court today preserved the term “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, reversing an earlier ruling by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that teacher-led recitation of the Pledge, when it contained the words “under God,” was unconstitutional. CONTACT Mary SchultzCommunications Manager202.419.4556mschultz@pewresearch.org/religion The Court […]
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