Pew Research Center researches religion and spirituality across the globe. The think tank surveyed people in 102 countries and has announced what they found to be the most religious place in the world.
The surveys for each region aimed to measure whether a region was changing religiously. Those polled were asked questions such as “How important is religion in your life?” and “How often do you pray?” Jonathan Evans, a senior researcher focusing on religion research, acknowledges these questions do not encompass all religious practices, which include dietary restrictions for some faith traditions.
Based on these two measures, sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East-North Africa region were the most religious places in the world. Europe and East Asia were the least religious.
East Asians are the least likely to say religion plays an important role in their lives. Nowhere in East Asia do more than a fifth of the people say they pray daily (21%). On the other hand, more Latin Americans say they pray daily (Guatemala and Paraguay, 82%; Costa Rica and Honduras, 78%).
In America, almost half (42%) of adults polled say religion is very important in their lives. Pew notes that “this is below the 102-place median of 55%.”
“Asking people about the importance of religion in their lives and how often they pray can provide an important window into their religiosity. But these questions work better in some places than in others,” Evans wrote.
He continued, “These two measures may be especially valuable in places where Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – predominate, because prayer and formal religious organizations are central to those traditions. In other parts of the world, we need to ask additional questions to capture key aspects of religious or spiritual observance.”
For more interesting facts and the survey’s methodology, click here.
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.
