survey

Robert P. Jones 12-13-2021

A protester in London on Dec. 5, 2020. Photo: Joshua Windsor / Alamy.

This new survey found a remarkable number of Americans reporting serious family conflict over COVID-19 vaccinations. Fully one in five Americans (19 percent) say that disagreements over COVID-19 vaccinations have caused “major conflict” in their families. Similarly, earlier this fall, PRRI found that 22 percent of Americans reported that their extended family relationships have been “strained to the breaking point” over the issue of getting a COVID-19 vaccination.

I believe the church is a critical and indispensable — though not exclusive — vehicle for sharing the good news and advancing God’s beloved community here on Earth. But last week, Gallup caused a stir when it released new research on the trends in Americans’ membership in houses of worship, which fell below 50 percent for the first time in the 80 years. 

the Web Editors 9-16-2020

Shoes stolen by Germans from Jewish children arriving at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Photo: William Warby / Unsplash

However, overall respondents conveyed a desire for compulsory education of this horrific time in history, with 64 percent of American millennials and Gen Zers expressing that Holocaust education should be compulsory in school.

the Web Editors 1-10-2018

“In the midst of the critical national conversation now taking place on issues of sexual harassment and assault, this survey shows that young Americans in their teens and early twenties see serious negative consequences flowing from traditional depictions of masculinity,” Robert P. Jones, CEO of PRRI, said. “Young women, in particular, are worried that these expectations carry within them the seeds of sexually aggressive or even violent behavior.”

Image via Nadin Panina / Shutterstock

Kevin L. Ladd, a professor of psychology at Indiana University South Bend, said it makes sense that, as society grows less religious in the traditional sense, fewer people are turning to prayer.

Kaya Oakes 4-25-2017

I interviewed a dozen Christian millennials from different denominational backgrounds about these questions, and found that most of them disagree with the idea that government should be borrowing ideas from business in terms of how it operates.

Image via RNS/Anti-Defamation League

For the first time, a majority of Americans has voiced concern about violence against Jews, polling by the Anti-Defamation League shows.

While 52 percent of Americans surveyed said they are disturbed about such violence, an even higher percentage — 76 percent — said they are concerned about violence against Muslims.

Image via REUTERS/Jessica Rinaldi/RNS

LifeWay Research has taken a close look at what might draw them in, zeroing in on people who say they have not attended a religious service in the past six months except for special events or holidays.

Worship? Not particularly interested, two in three people told the evangelical research firm in a survey released June 28.

Image via  / Shutterstock.com

The vast majority of Americans have prayed for the healing of others and more than 1 in 4 have practiced the laying on of hands, a Baylor University expert reports. “Outside of belief in God, there may be no more ubiquitous religious expression in the U.S. than use of healing prayer,” said Jeff Levin of the university’s Institute for Studies of Religion in an announcement of his findings.

Image via Pew Research Center / RNS

Look around. Three in 10 people you see claim they are pretty satisfied with life, happy, healthy, and moral, too. They’re the “highly religious,” 30 percent of U.S. adults who say they pray daily and attend church at least once a week.

Image via Pew Research Center / RNS

Fewer men than women show up in U.S. churches, and women are markedly more likely to pray and to hold up religion as important. But in Muslim nations, it’s the women who are missing in action at the mosque — and yet they’re on par with men in upholding almost all the Muslim pillars of faith.

Image via RNS.

“Mostly what we find is a huge gulf between ultra-Orthodox and secular Jews,” said Neha Sahgal, a senior researcher on the survey, “Israel’s Religiously Divided Society,” which is based on face-to-face interviews of more than 5,600 Israeli Jews, Muslims, Christians and Druze.

Secular Israeli Jews, for example, say they are more uncomfortable with the idea of their child marrying a very Orthodox Jew than a Christian, the report shows.

Republicans and Democrats divide sharply over views on Islam, Muslims, and how a U.S. president should label violent extremists. But Americans overall agree there’s a “a lot” of discrimination against Muslims living in the United States — and it’s rising — a new Pew Research survey finds.

Image via LifeWay Research/RNS

Sometimes a call from God is not enough to keep a pastor in his post.

Many evangelical pastors who quit before retirement age found “another calling” either off the pulpit or out of ministry altogether. But many also say they were driven away by conflict and burnout. So says a new survey of former pastors from four denominations.

Image via Pew Research Center / RNS

Most Americans see a conflict between the findings of science and the teachings of religion.

But “see” is the operative word in a new Pew Research Center report issued Oct. 22.

Examining perceptions leads to some unexpected findings.

While 59 percent of U.S. adults say they saw science and religion in conflict, that drops to 30 percent when people are asked about their own religious beliefs.

It turns out that the most highly religious were least likely to see conflict.

A couple holding hands. Image via Mirko Tabasevic/shutterstock.com

A couple holding hands. Image via Mirko Tabasevic/shutterstock.com

When it comes to consensual sexual ethics among millennials, all behaviors are on the table … if the time is right. For the same generation in which no single religious group claims more than about one in 10, there is also little clear generational consensus on sex and reproductive health, a new report finds.

“Across seven behaviors related to sexuality [including: using contraception, sex between minors, unmarried cohabitation], there were no issues for which a majority pronounced them morally wrong in general,” the report, authored by Robert P. Jones and Daniel Cox at the Public Religion Research Institute, states.

Millennials prove a regular source of fascination for commentators and other millennials alike. This is the generation that launched a thousand think pieces, and understandably so — in study after study, millennials consistently defy both traditional categories and expected reactive categories alike. (We’re an obstinate bunch.)

When it comes to sex, PRRI’s new release highlights what its authors call “situationalist ethics” — a flexible set of acceptable behaviors. Far from displaying a lack of moral code, the report suggests millennials embracing nebulous but durable moral through-lines that eschew the “whats” of behavior for the “hows” and “whens.” 

For example, in the case of sex between two adults who have no intention of establishing a relationship, millennials are evenly divided for and against (37 percent), with a significant number saying it depends on the situation (21 percent).

When it comes to abortion, most say it depends on the situation (39 percent), though more say it’s morally wrong than morally acceptable. Using artificial forms of birth control is by far the clearest point of agreement, with a full 71 percent saying it’s morally acceptable and another 14 percent depending on the situation — only 9 percent rejecting the use.

The report examines how our generation’s religious, racial, and political diversity is shaping attitudes, but it’s worth nothing how educational attainment is shaping moral frameworks, too. Much of the report’s findings reflect similar attitudes on broad categories across racial and religious lines, while noting some stark differences when broken down by educational attainment. (Not discussed in the report, but well-documented elsewhere — the crucial question of poverty and economic mobility when it comes to sexual norms.)

“Among Americans who pray: People typically pray for…” graphic courtesy of LifeWay Christian Resources/RNS.

When Americans aren’t busy praying for themselves or their own needs — and most of them are — many are seeking divine intervention on behalf of a favorite sports team or the golden ticket in the lottery, according to a new survey.

About 13 percent of Americans who pray say they pray for sports teams, compared with about one in five (21 percent) who say they have prayed to win the lottery, the new survey from LifeWay Research suggests. 

A survey earlier this year from Public Religion Research Institute suggested that more Americans (26 percent) pray for their sports team, while more than seven in 10 (73 percent) say they have never done this.

Some of LifeWay’s new survey’s main findings include:

9-18-2014
Most pastors these days are at least a bit wiser both theologically and practically in how they deal with someone facing domestic violence. That’s one result from a groundbreaking survey released last week by Sojourners, a national Christian social justice organization.

“Church Size Is By Far The Strongest Predictor of Large church Senior Pastor Salaries,” graphic via Leadership Network/RNS.

Large churches in the South tend to pay their senior pastors the highest salaries, a new survey finds.

That’s one of the conclusions on churches and finances released Sept. 9 by Leadership Network, a Dallas-based church think tank, and the Vanderbloemen Search Group, a Houston-based executive search firm for churches and ministries. A total of 727 North American churches with attendance ranging from 1,000 to more than 30,000 answered questions, more than double the number of congregations featured in previous studies.

The survey found that 14 percent of large churches have a financial bonus structure for their top leader. And one in five of the big congregations find ways to collect their money other than passing the proverbial offering plate.

“Differences in Reported Attendance by Survey Mode Among Religious Groups” graph courtesy of PRRI. Via RNS.

“I know what you did last Sunday,” claims the title of a new survey.

You skipped church. And then nearly one in seven of you fibbed about attending.

That’s according to a new survey by the Public Religion Research Institute released Saturday. The study, to be presented at the national meeting of the American Association for Public Opinion Research, was designed to measure the “social desirability bias in self-reported religious behavior.”

The survey finds that many Christians — and unbelievers, too — will exaggerate about attending worship in live phone interviews. However, when asked in an anonymous online questionnaire, people will answer more realistically.