A better glance at Jehovah’s Witnesses staying in the U.S.

The death of star musician Prince has prompted numerous reflections on their life – including their spiritual faith. Prince, who was simply 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, whom constitute simply not as much as 1% of U.S. grownups, are notable for their door-to-door proselytism. But people in this denomination, which includes its origins in 19th-century America, will also be unique in several different ways. Listed below are a few information about Jehovah’s Witnesses in america today, centered on Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape research:

Demographics

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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 history: 36% are white, 32% are Hispanic, 27% are black colored and 6% are another battle or race that is mixed.

Most Jehovah’s Witnesses – roughly two-thirds (65%) – are women, while just 35% are males. Christians internationally are more inclined to be females than males, but this sex space is specially big within the context of U.S. Christian teams. By way of example, 54% of U.S. Catholics are ladies.

Compared to other U.S. groups that are religious Jehovah’s Witnesses tend become less educated. An excellent most of adult Jehovah’s Witnesses (63%) don’t have any significantly more than a senior school diploma|school that is high}, compared to, for instance, 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 have been raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses, two-thirds (66%) no further recognize aided by the team. In comparison, about two-thirds of the who had been raised as evangelical Protestants (65%) and Mormons (64%) nevertheless state these are generally people in those groups that are respective.

Regarding the side that is flip about two-thirds (65%) of current adult Jehovah’s Witnesses are converts – like Prince, these were raised an additional faith.

Spiritual opinions and techniques

Jehovah’s Witnesses identify as Christians, however their thinking are very different off their Christians in a few means. As an example, they train that Jesus could be the son of Jesus it is maybe not element of a Trinity.

By conventional measures of spiritual dedication, Jehovah’s Witnesses are the most extremely spiritual major U.S. spiritual teams. Nine-in-ten Jehovah’s Witnesses (90%) state faith is essential inside their everyday lives, while comparable stocks state they rely on Jesus with absolute certainty (90per cent) the Bible could be the term of Jesus (94%).

Our study bought at minimum two other interesting methods in which Jehovah’s Witnesses be noticeable inside 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 most U.S. Christians whom rely on hell is 10 times bigger (70%). And most Jehovah’s Witnesses (83%) state their faith may be the one real faith ultimately causing eternal life; no more than three-in-ten U.S. Christians (29%) think this about their very own spiritual faith.

In contrast to U.S. Christians general, Jehovah’s Witnesses are specifically expected to state they attend spiritual solutions at least one time per week (85%, in contrast to 47% of most U.S. Christians), pray daily (90% of Jehovah’s Witnesses vs. 68% of most U.S. Christians) and – not interestingly – share their faith with others one or more times a week (76% vs. 26%). additionally they tend to be more likely than U.S. Christians general to take part in prayer or scripture research teams also to read scripture at least regular, among other behaviors that are religious.

Personal and governmental views

Like a great many other very spiritual Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses have a tendency to simply take conservative jobs on social problems. 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 try not to commonly advocate for those philosophy when you look at the governmental sphere. The denomination shows that its users should stay politically basic and abstain from voting or playing “any action to improve governments.”

This can be mirrored inside our polling. Three-quarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses (75%) state they’ve been governmental independents that do perhaps not lean toward either party that is major. Half (50%) decrease to answer a concern about governmental ideology (i.e., whether they describe their views that are political conservative, moderate or liberal). & most Jehovah’s Witnesses (64%), whenever expected if they’re registered to vote, state they’re not registered or decrease to resolve issue.

Note: the final two paragraphs underneath the “Demographics” part had been added.