Christianity

Five hundred years after the start of the Protestant Reformation, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that U.S. Protestants are not united about – and in some cases, are not even aware of – some of the controversies that were central to the historical schism between Protestantism and Catholicism.

As Protestants prepare to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, two new surveys show the theological differences that split Western Christianity in the 1500s have diminished.

As Protestants prepare to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that the prevailing view among Catholics and Protestants in Western Europe is that they are more similar religiously than they are different.

More Christian than Muslim refugees have been admitted to the United States in the first months of the Trump administration, reversing a trend that had seen Muslims outnumber Christians in the final fiscal year under President Barack Obama, a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. State Department refugee data has found.

Christians were harassed by governments or social groups in a total of 128 countries in 2015 – more countries than any other religious group.

A substantial share of adults in Central and Eastern Europe hold traditional views of women and the family, especially in countries with Orthodox majorities.

Russia is widely viewed by the region’s Orthodox Christians as an important counterweight to Western influences and as a global protector of Orthodox and ethnic Russian populations.

Religion has reasserted itself as an important part of individual and national identity in many places where communist regimes once repressed religious worship and promoted atheism.