The death of star musician Prince has prompted reflections that are many their life – including their spiritual faith. Prince, who had been raised as A seventh-day adventist, became a Jehovah’s Witness as a grown-up and went to solutions inside the house state of Minnesota.
Jehovah’s Witnesses, who make-up simply lower than 1% of U.S. grownups, are recognized for their door-to-door proselytism. But people in this denomination, that has its origins in 19th-century America, will also be unique in a lot of different ways. Listed below are a facts that are few Jehovah’s Witnesses in the us today, according to Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape research:
Demographics
Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the most racially and ethnically diverse spiritual teams in America. A maximum of four-in-ten people in the team are part of any one racial and cultural back ground: 36% are white, 32% are Hispanic, 27% are black colored and 6% are another competition or blended competition.
Most Jehovah’s Witnesses – roughly two-thirds (65%) – are women, while just 35% are guys. Christians globally are more inclined to be females than guys, but this sex space is specially big within the context of U.S. Christian teams. As an example, 54% of U.S. Catholics are ladies.
Weighed against other U.S. spiritual teams, Jehovah’s Witnesses tend become less educated. A good most of adult Jehovah’s Witnesses (63%) don’t have any significantly more than a senior school diploma|school that is high}, weighed against, as an example, 43% of evangelical Protestants and 37% of mainline Protestants.
Jehovah’s Witnesses have low retention price in accordance with other U.S. spiritual teams. Among all U.S. grownups who had been raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses, two-thirds (66%) not any longer determine using the team. By comparison, about two-thirds of the who had been raised as evangelical Protestants (65%) and Mormons (64%) nevertheless state they’ve been people of those groups that are respective.
In the flip part, about two-thirds (65%) of current adult Jehovah’s Witnesses are converts – like Prince, ru brides they certainly were raised an additional faith.
Spiritual opinions and techniques
Jehovah’s Witnesses identify as Christians, but their opinions are very different off their Christians in a few methods. By way of example, they show that Jesus could be the son of Jesus it is maybe not section of a Trinity.
By old-fashioned measures of spiritual dedication, Jehovah’s Witnesses are the most very spiritual U.S. that is major religious. Nine-in-ten Jehovah’s Witnesses (90%) state faith is essential within their life, while comparable stocks state they have confidence in Jesus with absolute certainty (90 percent) and therefore the Bible may be the term of Jesus (94%).
Our study bought at minimum two other ways that are interesting which Jehovah’s Witnesses stick out within their opinions. The traditional image of which is challenged by the denomination’s teaching for one, while half of Jehovah’s Witnesses say they believe in heaven, very few (7%) say they believe in hell. The share of all U.S. Christians whom believe in hell is 10 times bigger (70%). And most Jehovah’s Witnesses (83%) state their faith could be the one real faith ultimately causing eternal life; no more than three-in-ten U.S. Christians (29%) think this about their particular spiritual faith.
Compared to U.S. Christians general, Jehovah’s Witnesses are specially prone to state they attend spiritual solutions one or more times per week (85%, compared to 47% of all of the U.S. Christians), pray daily (90% of Jehovah’s Witnesses vs. 68% of all of the U.S. Christians) and – not interestingly – share their faith with other people one or more times per week (76% vs. 26%). They even are far more likely than U.S. Christians general to take part in prayer or scripture research teams and also to read scripture at the least regular, among other behaviors that are religious.
Personal and governmental views
Like a great many other very christians that are religious Jehovah’s Witnesses have a tendency to simply take conservative jobs on social dilemmas. Each) for example, three-quarters (75%) say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases, while similar shares oppose same-sex marriage and say homosexuality should be discouraged by society (76%. Approximately three-quarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses (74%) additionally reject development, saying people constantly existed within their form that is present since start of the time.
But Jehovah’s Witnesses usually do not commonly advocate of these philosophy within the governmental sphere. The denomination shows that its users should stay politically abstain and neutral from voting or playing “any action to improve governments.”
It is reflected within our polling. Three-quarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses (75%) state they have been governmental independents that do maybe not lean toward either party that is major. Half (50%) decrease to answer a concern about governmental ideology (in other terms., if they describe their views that are political conservative, moderate or liberal). And a lot of Jehovah’s Witnesses (64%), whenever expected if they’re registered to vote, state they’re not registered or decrease to resolve issue.
Note: the very last two paragraphs underneath the “Demographics” part were added.
