Religion & Politics

Forty years after a Time cover famously asked, "Is God Dead?" polls find the Almighty thriving in the nation's collective consciousness.

Although tolerance is an American ideal and freedom of religion is enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, American history has often been characterized by inter-religious conflict. Without question, however, much progress has been made in overcoming blatant forms of institutionalized religious discrimination. But historic tensions among American religious groups, not to mention […]

Summary of Findings As shoppers flock to the stores for holiday gifts, some express mixed feelings about the nation’s largest retailer. Nearly every American lives near enough a Wal-Mart to shop there, and 84% say they have done so in the past year. Praise for the retailer’s low prices, wide selection and convenience flow freely, […]

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 Leigh Eric Schmidt, a professor of religion at Princeton University and author of several books on the history of religion in American […]

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 […]

Introduction Throughout Europe today, it is not uncommon to see women wearing headscarves and men with skull caps and beards. On many European streets, shops now sport signs in Arabic and other Near Eastern languages and sell an array of exotic looking products from the Middle East and other parts of the Islamic world. Indeed, […]

Recognizing the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate, and the continuing need for mutual… (Introduced in House) HCON 260 IH 109th CONGRESS 1st Session H. CON. RES. 260 Recognizing the 40th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on the Relation of […]

This week in federal district court, a group of parents is challenging the Dover, Pa. school board’s decision to require the teaching of “intelligent design” in science classes, on the grounds that this policy violates the principle of separation of church and state. The case is just the latest in a long series of court […]

Center for Strategic & International Studies Washington, D.C. During the past year, Chinese President Hu Jintao and the leadership of the Communist Party of China have emphasized “building a harmonious society” in the face of escalating social and economic challenges resulting from China’s rapid economic growth. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life co-hosted […]

Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin published his groundbreaking theory on the origins of life, Americans are still fighting over evolution. If anything, the controversy is growing in both size and intensity. Recent polls indicate that challenges to Darwinian evolution have substantial support among the American people. According to a July 2005 survey sponsored by […]