Religious Trends

"Two recent books have taken up these questions in a markedly optimistic spirit: Glenn Stanton’s The Myth of the Dying Church: How Christianity is Actually Thriving in America and the World and Rick Richardson’s You Found Me: New Research on How Unchurched Nones, Millennials, and Irreligious are Surprisingly Open to Christian Faith." - Christianity Today

"According to recent surveys from both Gallup and Pew Research, more Americans than before have a negative opinion of church." - Facts & Trends

"Buddhism is the most trusted religion in New Zealand, while Evangelical Christians take the bottom spot, a new survey says." - NZ Herald

"U.S. adults generally can answer basic questions about the Bible and Christianity, but are less familiar with other world religions" - Pew

"Americans with a high level of religious knowledge have a warmer view of Jews, Catholics, mainline Protestants and Buddhists than they have of evangelical Christians and are least warm to Muslims and atheists, according to a new study from the Pew Research Center." - Christian Examiner

"A growing number of Americans do not follow a religion. But chances are that the details of their lives — from their phones and their politics to their dinner plates and how they raise their kids — are still ruled by some sort of a religious impulse, says author David Zahl." - RNS

“To put it another way, religious decline in Britain is generational; people tend to be less religious than their parents, and on average their children are even less religious than they are.” - Guardian

"Americans' confidence in the church or organized religion continues to erode, with 36% now saying they have 'a great deal' or 'quite a lot' of confidence in organized religion, establishing another new low point in Gallup's trend." - Gallup