Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
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Worldwide, both government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion decreased modestly from 2013 to 2014 despite a rise in religion-related terrorism, according to Pew Research Center’s latest annual study on global restrictions on religion.[1. This is the fourth time Pew Research Center has analyzed restrictions on religion in a calendar year. Earlier reports […]
Women are more likely than men to say they attend worship services regularly. But this gap in church attendance has been narrowing in recent decades, as the share of women attending weekly has declined.
Jehovah’s Witnesses, who make up just less than 1% of U.S. adults, are known for their door-to-door proselytism. But members of this denomination, which has its origins in 19th-century America, are also unique in many other ways.
While Christian women are on the whole more religious than Christian men, Muslim women and Muslim men have similar levels of religious commitment. And when it comes to attendance at worship services, Muslim men are more active than Muslim women.
A discussion with David Voas of the Department of Social Science at University College London on the gender gap in religion around the world.
Standard lists of history’s most influential religious leaders – among them Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) – tend to be predominantly, if not exclusively, male. Many religious groups, including Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews, allow only men to be clergy, while others, including some denominations in the evangelical Protestant tradition, have lifted that restriction only in recent decades. Yet it often appears that the ranks of the faithful are dominated by women.
Israeli Druze make up roughly 2% of the country’s population and live mostly in the northern regions of the Galilee, Carmel and the Golan Heights. Their tradition dates back to the 11th century and incorporates elements of Islam, Hinduism and even classical Greek philosophy.
There are deep divisions in Israeli society over political values and religion’s role in public life — not only between Jews and the Arab minority, but also among the religious subgroups that make up Israeli Jewry.
We looked at nine major religious organizations in the U.S. that both ordain women and allow them to hold top leadership slots.
Mexico is home to not only the largest Spanish-speaking population in the world, but one of the biggest Catholic populations, too.
