The World Religion Project (WRP) aims to provide detailed information about religious adherence worldwide since 1945. It contains data about the number of adherents by religion in each of the states in the international system. These numbers are given for every half-decade period (1945, 1950, etc., through 2010). Percentages of the states' populations that practice a given religion are also provided. (Note: These percentages are expressed as decimals, ranging from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates that 0 percent of the population practices a given religion and 1 indicates that 100 percent of the population practices that religion.) Some of the religions are divided into religious families. To the extent data are available, the breakdown of adherents within a given religion into religious families is also provided.

The project was developed in three stages. The first stage consisted of the formation of a religion tree. A religion tree is a systematic classification of major religions and of religious families within those major religions. To develop the religion tree we prepared a comprehensive literature review, the aim of which was (i) to define a religion, (ii) to find tangible indicators of a given religion of religious families within a major religion, and (iii) to identify existing efforts at classifying world religions. (Please see the original survey instrument to view the structure of the religion tree.) The second stage consisted of the identification of major data sources of religious adherence and the collection of data from these sources according to the religion tree classification. This created a dataset that included multiple records for some states for a given point in time. It also contained multiple missing data for specific states, specific time periods and specific religions. The third stage consisted of cleaning the data, reconciling discrepancies of information from different sources and imputing data for the missing cases.

The National Religion Dataset: The observation in this dataset is a state-five-year unit. This dataset provides information regarding the number of adherents by religions, as well as the percentage of the state's population practicing a given religion.

In 2022, around 31.6 percent of the global population were identify as Christian. Around 25.8 percent of the global population identify as Muslims, followed by 15.1 percent of global populations as Hindu.

As of 2010, Christianity was the religion with the most followers worldwide, followed by Islam (Muslims) and Hinduism. In the forty years between 2010 and 2050, it is projected that the landscape of world religions will undergo some noticeable changes, with the number of Muslims almost catching up to Christians. The changes in population sizes of each religious group is largely dependent on demographic development, for example, the rise in the world's Christian population will largely be driven by population growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, while Muslim populations will rise across various regions of Africa and South Asia. As India's population is set to grow while China's goes into decline, this will be reflected in the fact that Hindus will outnumber the unaffiliated by 2050. In fact, India may be home to both the largest Hindu and Muslim populations in the world by the middle of this century.

This study, designed and carried out by the "http://www.asarb.org/" Target="_blank">Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies (ASARB), compiled data on 372 religious bodies by county in the United States. Of these, the ASARB was able to gather data on congregations and adherents for 217 religious bodies and on congregations only for 155. Participating bodies included 354 Christian denominations, associations, or communions (including Latter-day Saints, Messianic Jews, and Unitarian/Universalist groups); counts of Jain, Shinto, Sikh, Tao, Zoroastrian, American Ethical Union, and National Spiritualist Association congregations, and counts of congregations and adherents from Baha'i, three Buddhist groupings, two Hindu groupings, four Jewish groupings, and Muslims. The 372 groups reported a total of 356,642 congregations with 161,224,088 adherents, comprising 48.6 percent of the total U.S. population of 331,449,281. Membership totals were estimated for some religious groups.

In January 2024, the ARDA added 21 religious tradition (RELTRAD) variables to this dataset. These variables start at variable #12 (TOTCNG_2020). Categories were assigned based on pages 88-94 in the original "https://www.usreligioncensus.org/index.php/node/1638" Target="_blank">2020 U.S. Religion Census Report.

Visit the "https://www.thearda.com/us-religion/sources-for-religious-congregations-membership-data" Target="_blank">frequently asked questions page for more information about the ARDA's religious congregation and membership data sources.

In 2023, 27.5 percent of Americans were unaffiliated with any religion. A further 13.4 percent of Americans were White evangelical Protestants, and an additional 13.3 percent were White mainline Protestants. Religious trends in the United States Although the United States is still home to the largest number of Christians worldwide, the nation has started to reflect a more diverse religious landscape in recent years. Americans now report a wide range of religious beliefs and backgrounds, in addition to an increasing number of people who are choosing to identify with no religion at all. Studies suggest that many Americans have left their previous religion to instead identify as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular, with many reasoning that they stopped believing in the religion's teachings, that they didn't approve of negative teachings or treatment of LGBTQ+ people, or that their family was never that religious growing up. Christian controversies Over the last few years, controversies linked to Christian denominations have plagued the nation, including reports of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and the Southern Baptist Convention. Christian churches have also been accused of supporting discriminatory actions against LGBTQ+ people and people belonging to other religious groups. In addition, there have been increasing concerns about Christian nationalism, the political ideology that asserts that America was founded to be a Christian nation. Although the majority of Americans still think that declaring the United States a Christian nation would go against the U.S. Constitution, studies found that most Republicans would be in favor of this change.

This repository contains historical data collected in the digital humanities project Dhimmis & Muslims – Analysing Multireligious Spaces in the Medieval Muslim World. The project was funded by the VolkswagenFoundation within the scope of the Mixed Methods initiative. The project was a collaboration between the Institute for Medieval History II of the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, and the Institute for Visualization and Interactive Systems at the University of Stuttgart, and took place there from 2018 to 2021. The objective of this joint project was to develop a novel visualization approach in order to gain new insights on the multi-religious landscapes of the Middle East under Muslim rule during the Middle Ages (7th to 14th century). In particular, information on multi-religious communities were researched and made available in a database accessible through interactive visualization as well as through a pilot web-based geo-temporal multi-view system to analyze and compare information from multiple sources. The code for this visualization system is publicly available on GitHub under the MIT license. The data in this repository is a curated database dump containing data collected from a predetermined set of primary historical sources and literature. The core objective of the data entry was to record historical evidence for religious groups in cities of the Medieval Middle East. In the project, data was collected in a relational PostgreSQL database, the structure of which can be reconstructed from the file schema.sql. An entire database dump including both the database schema and the table contents is located in database.sql. The PDF file database-structure.pdf describes the relationship between tables in a graphical schematic. In the database.json file, the contents of the individual tables are stored in JSON format. At the top level, the JSON file is an object. Each table is stored as a key-value pair, where the key is the database name, and the value is an array of table records. Each table record is itself an object of key-value pairs, where the keys are the table columns, and the values are the corresponding values in the record. The dataset is centered around the evidence, which represents one piece of historical evidence as extracted from one or more sources. An evidence must contain a reference to a place and a religion, and may reference a person and one or more time spans. Instances are used to connect evidences to places, persons, and religions; and additional metadata are stored individually in the instances. Time instances are connected to the evidence via a time group to allow for more than one time span per evidence. An evidence is connected via one or more source instances to one or more sources. Evidences can also be tagged with one or more tags via the tag_evidence table. Places and persons have a type, which are defined in the place type and person type tables. Alternative names for places are stored in the name_var table with a reference to the respective language. For places and persons, references to URIs in other data collections (such as Syriaca.org or the Digital Atlas of the Roman Empire) are also stored, in the external_place_uri and external_person_uri tables. Rules for how to construct the URIs from the fragments stored in the last-mentioned tables are controlled via the uri_namespace and external_database tables. Part of the project was to extract historical evidence from digitized texts, via annotations. Annotations are placed in a document, which is a digital version of a source. An annotation can be one of the four instance types, thereby referencing a place, person, religion, or time group. A reference to the annotation is stored in the instance, and evidences are constructed from annotations by connecting the respective instances in an evidence tuple.

In 2021, 53.3 percent of the total population in Canada were Christian, 4.9 percent were Muslim, but almost more than a third are not religious at all – with the rest stating they adhere to Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, the Jewish faith, and other Christian denominations. Canada’s religious pluralismCanada is not a very religious country in general. Canadians adhere to a wide variety of beliefs and faiths, with the majority following Christianity, followed by those who do not believe in any deity or religion at all. As with many Western countries, the younger generations are less inclined to identify with faith, and Christianity in particular is not as popular as it is among the older generations. Alternative worship for the younger generations?Canadian teenagers are no less enthusiastic about religion than their parents, and they are just as grounded in their faith as the older generations. They are, however, also just as indecisive when it comes to whether they would call themselves religious or not. Interestingly, they seem much more interested in traditional aboriginal spirituality than in the Judeo-Christian model. They also seem quite interested in another alternative to Christianity: Buddhism is quite popular among the younger generations. Whether this signifies a general trend away from Christianity and towards religious alternatives remains to be seen.

According to a survey conducted in South Korea in 2023, over 60 percent of respondents reported no religious affiliation, while approximately 20 percent identified as Christians and 16 percent as Buddhists. Religious population South Korea is a multi-religious society where Christianity, Buddhism, and various other religions coexist with shamanism. According to a previous study, the domestic religious population appeared to decline over time after reaching its peak in 2005, at nearly 25 million people. In contrast, the share of people who are religiously unaffiliated has increased in recent years. Within the last two decades, the religiously unaffiliated population has increased from about 40 percent to more than 60 percent. Shamanism Shamanism has continued to significantly influence the daily lives of many South Koreans. According to a survey conducted in 2023, about 40 percent of respondents reported having consulted a fortune-teller within the past year. Roughly 80 percent of those respondents were already affiliated with a religion.

Large-scale microdata on group identity are critical for studies on identity politics and violence but remain largely unavailable for developing countries. We use personal names to infer religion in South Asia - where religion is a salient social division, and yet, disaggregated data on it are scarce. Existing work predicts religion using a dictionary-based method, and therefore, cannot classify unseen names. We provide character-based machine learning models that can classify unseen names too with high accuracy. Our models are also much faster, and hence, scalable to large datasets. We explain the classification decisions of one of our models using the layer-wise relevance propagation technique. The character patterns learned by the classifier are rooted in the linguistic origins of names. We apply these to infer the religion of electoral candidates using historical data on Indian elections and observe a trend of declining Muslim representation. Our approach can be used to detect identity groups across the world for whom the underlying names might have different linguistic roots.

In 2023, over 87 percent of Indonesians declared themselves to be Muslim, followed by 7.4 percent who were Christians. Indonesia has the largest Islamic population in the world and for this reason is often recognized as a Muslim nation. However, Indonesia is not a Muslim nation according to its constitution. The archipelago is a multifaith country and officially recognizes six religions – Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Confucianism.

Not all provinces in Indonesia are Muslim majority
The spread of Islam in Indonesia began on the west side of the archipelago, where the main maritime trade routes were located. Until today, most of the Indonesian Muslim population are residing in Western and Central Indonesia, while the majority religion of several provinces in Eastern Indonesia, such as East Nusa Tenggara and Bali, is Christian and Hindu, respectively.

Discrimination towards other beliefs in Indonesia The Indonesian constitution provides for freedom of religion. However, the Government Restrictions Index Score on religion in Indonesia is relatively high. Indonesians who practice unrecognized religions, including Indonesia’s indigenous or traditional belief systems, such as animism, dynamism, and totemism, face legal restrictions and discrimination. Indonesian law requires its citizens to put one of the recognized religions on their national identity cards, with some exceptions for indigenous religions. Although legally citizens may leave the section blank, atheism or agnosticism is considered uncommon in Indonesia.

India Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Urban data was reported at 68,740,419.000 Person in 2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 49,393,496.000 Person for 2001. India Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Urban data is updated yearly, averaging 59,066,957.500 Person from Mar 2001 (Median) to 2011, with 2 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 68,740,419.000 Person in 2011 and a record low of 49,393,496.000 Person in 2001. India Census: Population: by Religion: Muslim: Urban data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Census of India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Demographic – Table IN.GAE001: Census: Population: by Religion.

Census: Population: by Religion: Christian: Punjab data was reported at 348,230.000 Person in 03-01-2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 292,800.000 Person for 03-01-2001. Census: Population: by Religion: Christian: Punjab data is updated decadal, averaging 320,515.000 Person from Mar 2001 (Median) to 03-01-2011, with 2 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 348,230.000 Person in 03-01-2011 and a record low of 292,800.000 Person in 03-01-2001. Census: Population: by Religion: Christian: Punjab data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Demographic – Table IN.GAE004: Census: Population: by Religion: Christian.

Census: Population: by Religion: Christian: Delhi data was reported at 146,093.000 Person in 03-01-2011. This records an increase from the previous number of 130,319.000 Person for 03-01-2001. Census: Population: by Religion: Christian: Delhi data is updated decadal, averaging 138,206.000 Person from Mar 2001 (Median) to 03-01-2011, with 2 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 146,093.000 Person in 03-01-2011 and a record low of 130,319.000 Person in 03-01-2001. Census: Population: by Religion: Christian: Delhi data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India. The data is categorized under India Premium Database’s Demographic – Table IN.GAE004: Census: Population: by Religion: Christian.

The roles religion and politics play in the climate change arena have received greater attention in the past decade. Nonetheless, the relationship between religion and politics in how they shape climate change views is poorly understood, particularly among American evangelicals. This study uses data from a probability-based mail survey of residents in the political swing state of Florida, USA to examine the relationships between evangelical identity, religiosity, partisan affiliation and three measures of climate-related views: global warming knowledge, belief, and risk perception. Findings from structural equation modeling demonstrate that evangelical identity, mediated by religiosity, exerts significant negative influences on climate measures, even when partisan affiliation is considered. We discuss these results, exploring the nuanced relationships between these variables and the implications they have on the climate change views of a large and influential segment of the public.

Barro and McCleary (2003, Religion and economic growth across countries. American Journal of Sociology 68: 760-781) is a key research contribution in the new literature exploring the macroeconomic effects of religious beliefs. This paper represents an effort to evaluate the strength of their claims. We evaluate their results in terms of replicability and robustness. Overall, their analysis generally meets the standard of statistical replicability, though not perfectly. On the other hand, we do not find that their results are robust to changes in their baseline statistical specification. When model-averaging methods are employed to integrate information across alternative statistical specifications, little evidence survives that religious variables help to predict cross-country income differences.

World Youth Day experiences (personal or from family members). Perception and evaluation of World Youth Day coverage. Impact and sustainability of World Youth Day. Attitudes towards religion and the Church. Topics: 1. World Youth Day experiences (personal or of family members): Participation in the World Youth Day in Cologne and form of the event; length of stay at the World Youth Day; previous participation in a major religious event (previous World Youth Day, Taizé, pilgrimage, church day, other (open)); family members as participants in the World Youth Day and relationship; length of stay of family members; guests during the World Youth Day or the days of the encounter; country of origin of the guests; contact; personal participation or participation of family members in the days of the encounter; form of participation. 2. Perception and evaluation of the coverage of WYD: Perception of the coverage of WYD in different media; live broadcasts of WYD seen or heard; topics of these live broadcasts; number of hours of live broadcasts watched in total; aspects of the coverage that remained in the memory; evaluation of the media coverage of WYD. 3.Impact and sustainability of WYD: WYD as a motivation to participate in the Church; more conversations about faith and religion due to WYD in the personal environment; expected impact of WYD in the areas of religion, Mass, Church and community; consequences of WYD (open); expected long-term impact of WYD on the personal environment; change in the Pope´s image due to WYD coverage; positive or negative change in the Pope´s image. 4. Attitudes towards religion and church: religious affiliation; attitude towards the institution of church; frequency of church service attendance; personal involvement in a church group; nature of this church group; self-assessment of religiosity; church must change; basic trust through faith; religion and faith as old hat or uninteresting; desire for more influence of faith and religion in society; stronger interest of young people in religion and faith than it appears (religious silence spiral). Demography: sex; age (year of birth); religious denomination; highest school-leaving qualification; marital status; own children; number of children; occupational status. Additionally coded: ID; city size. Weltjugendtagerfahrungen (persönlich oder von Familienmitgliedern). Wahrnehmung und Bewertung der Berichterstattung über den Weltjugendtag. Auswirkungen und Nachhaltigkeit des Weltjugendtags. Einstellungen zu Religion und Kirche. Themen: 1. Weltjugendtagerfahrungen (persönlich oder von Familienmitgliedern): Teilnahme am Weltjugendtag in Köln und Form der Veranstaltung; Aufenthaltsdauer auf dem Weltjugendtag; frühere Teilnahme an einer religiösen Großveranstaltung (früherer Weltjugendtag, Taizé, Wallfahrt, Kirchentag, sonstiges (offen)); Familienmitglieder als Teilnehmer am Weltjugendtag und Verwandtschaftsverhältnis; Aufenthaltsdauer der Familienmitglieder; Gäste während des Weltjugendtages oder den Tagen der Begegnung; Herkunftsland der Gäste; Kontakt; persönliche Teilnahme bzw. Teilnahme von Familienmitgliedern an den Tagen der Begegnung; Form der Teilnahme. 2. Wahrnehmung und Bewertung der Berichterstattung über den Weltjugendtag: Wahrnehmung der Berichterstattung über den Weltjugendtag in verschiedenen Medien; Live-Übertragungen vom Weltjugendtag gesehen bzw. gehört; Themen dieser Live-Übertragungen; Stundenzahl der verfolgten Live-Übertragungen insgesamt; Aspekte der Berichterstattung, die im Gedächtnis geblieben sind; Bewertung der Medienberichterstattung zum Weltjugendtag. 3. Auswirkungen und Nachhaltigkeit des Weltjugendtags: Weltjugendtag als Motivation zur Mitarbeit in der Kirche; mehr Gespräche über Glauben und Religion aufgrund des Weltjugendtages im persönlichen Umfeld; erwartete Auswirkungen des Weltjugendtages in den Bereichen Religion, Messe, Kirche und Gemeinde; Folgen des Weltjugendtages (offen); erwarteter langfristiger Einfluss des Weltjugendtages auf das persönliche Umfeld; Veränderung des Papst-Images durch die Berichterstattung über den Weltjugendtag; positive oder negative Veränderung des Papst-Images. 4. Einstellungen zu Religion und Kirche: Religionszugehörigkeit; Einstellung zur Institution Kirche; Häufigkeit von Gottesdienstbesuchen; persönliches Engagement in einer kirchlichen Gruppe; Art dieser kirchlichen Gruppe; Selbsteinschätzung der Religiosität; Kirche muss sich ändern; Grundvertrauen durch den Glauben; Religion und Glauben als alter Hut bzw. uninteressant; Wunsch nach mehr Einfluss von Glaube und Religion in der Gesellschaft; stärkeres Interesse von Jugendlichen an Religion und Glauben als es den Anschein hat (religiöse Schweigespirale). Demographie: Geschlecht; Alter (Geburtsjahr); Konfession; höchster Schulabschluss; Familienstand; eigene Kinder; Kinderzahl; berufliche Stellung. Zusätzlich verkodet wurde: ID; Ortsgröße.

Islam and Christianity form the two dominant religions in Nigeria. Since colonialism, approximately 90 percent of the Nigerian people identify themselves as Islamic or Christian. The northern region of Nigeria is predominately Islamic, while the southern region is predominately Christian.

Nigeria’s contact with Islam predated that of Christianity and European colonialism; its spread was facilitated into Sub-Saharan Africa through trade and commerce. The northern part of Nigeria is symbolic to the history of Islam, as it penetrated the area through the Kanem-Borno Empire in the 11th century before spreading to other predominately Hausa states. Islam was then introduced into the traditional societies of the Yoruba-speaking people of south-west Nigeria through their established commercial relationship with people of the north, particularly the Nupe and Fulani.

Christianity reached Nigeria in the 15th century with the visitation of Catholic missionaries to the coastal areas of the Niger-Delta region. Christianity soon recorded a boost in the southern region given its opposition to the slave trade and its promotion of Western education.

The distinct religious divide has instigated violence in present-day Nigeria, including the Sharia riot in Kaduna in 2000, ongoing ethno-religious violence in Jos since 2001, and the 2011 post-election violence that erupted in some northern states, particularly in the city of Maiduguri. Nigerians’ continued loyalty to religion compared to that of the country continues to sustain major political debate, conflict, and violent outbreaks between populations of the two faiths.

ISO3-International Organization for Standardization 3-digit country code

NAME-Name of religious institution

TYPE-Type of religious institution

CITY-City religious institution is located in

SPA_ACC-Spatial accuracy of site location 1- high, 2 – medium, 3 - low

SOURCE_DT-Source creation date

SOURCE-Primary source

SOURCE2_DT-Secondary source creation date

SOURCE2-Secondary source

Collection

This HGIS was created using information collected from the web sites GCatholic.org, Islamic Finder, Wikimapia, and BBBike.org, which uses OpenStreetMap, a crowd-source collaboration project that geo-locates sites throughout the world. After collection, all education institutions were geo-located.

The data included herein have not been derived from a registered survey and should be considered approximate unless otherwise defined. While rigorous steps have been taken to ensure the quality of each dataset, DigitalGlobe Analytics is not responsible for the accuracy and completeness of data compiled from outside sources.

Sources (HGIS)

BBBike, "Nigeria." Last modified 2013. Accessed March 19, 2013. http://extract.bbbike.org.

GCatholic.org, "Catholic Churches in Federal Republic of Nigeria." Last modified 2013. Accessed April 4, 2013. http://www.gcatholic.org/.

Islamic Finder, "Nigeria." Last modified 2013. Accessed April 4, 2013. http://islamicfinder.org/.

Olanrewaju, Timothy. The Sun, "oko Haram attacks church in Maiduguri." Last modified 2013. Accessed April 9, 2013. http://sunnewsonline.com/.

Wikimapia, "Nigeria:Mosques/Churches." Last modified 2013. Accessed April 4, 2013. http://wikimapia.org/

World Watch Monitor, "Muslim Threat to Attack Church Raises Tensions." Last modified 2012. Accessed April 9, 2013. http://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/.

Sources (Metadata)

Danjibo, N.D. "Islamic Fundamentalism and Sectarian Violence: The "Maitatsine" and "Boko Haram" Crises in Northern Nigeria." manuscript., University of Ibadan, 2010. http://www.ifra-nigeria.org.

Olanrewaju, Timothy. The Sun, "oko Haram attacks church in Maiduguri." Last modified 2013. Accessed April 9, 2013. http://sunnewsonline.com/.

Onapajo, Hakeem. "Politics for God: Religion, Politics, and Conflict in Democratic Nigeria." Journal of Pan African Studies. 4. no. 9 (2012): 42-66. http://web.ebscohost.com (accessed March 26, 2013).

World Watch Monitor, "Muslim Threat to Attack Church Raises Tensions." Last modified 2012. Accessed April 9, 2013. http://www.worldwatchmonitor.org/.

In December 2009, Pew Research Center released 'Global Restrictions on Religion,' the first in a series of annual reports on a data-coding project that seeks to measure levels of government restrictions on religion and social hostilities involving religion around the world. The reports use two indexes to rate nearly 200 countries and self-governing territories on their levels of restrictions and hostilities. The Government Restrictions Index (GRI) is based on 20 indicators of ways that national and local governments restrict religion, including through coercion and force. The Social Hostilities Index (SHI) is based on 13 indicators of ways in which private individuals and social groups infringe upon religious beliefs and practices, including religiously biased crimes, mob violence and efforts to stop particular religious groups from growing or operating. The reports include data on the number and types of documented incidents of religion-related violence, including terrorism and armed conflict. As of June 2018, Pew Research had published nine reports on global restrictions on religion, analyzing a total of 10 years' worth of data (the first two reports covered a total of three years, from 2007 to 2009). The data are presented as a semiwide-format dataset, in which each row is a country-year observation (for example, 'Afghanistan, 2007'). The columns contain all of the variables presented in Pew Research Center's annual reports on restrictions on religion, as well as some additional variables analyzed in separate studies. The dataset currently contains data from 2007 through 2016.

This study assessed the effects of male inmate religiosity on post-release community adjustment and investigated the circumstances under which these effects were most likely to take place. The researcher carried out this study by adding Federal Bureau of Investigation criminal history information to an existing database (Clear et al.) that studied the relationship between an inmate's religiousness and his adjustment to the correctional setting. Four types of information were used in this study. The first three types were obtained by the original research team and included an inmate values and religiousness instrument, a pre-release questionnaire, and a three-month post-release follow-up phone survey. The fourth type of information, official criminal history reports, was later added to the original dataset by the principal investigator for this study. The prisoner values survey collected information on what the respondent would do if a friend sold drugs from the cell or if inmates of his race attacked others. Respondents were also asked if they thought God was revealed in the scriptures, if they shared their faith with others, and if they took active part in religious services. Information collected from the pre-release questionnaire included whether the respondent attended group therapy, religious groups with whom he would live, types of treatment programs he would participate in after prison, employment plans, how often he would go to church, whether he would be angry more in prison or in the free world, and whether he would be more afraid of being attacked in prison or in the free world. Each inmate also described his criminal history and indicated whether he thought he was able to do things as well as most others, whether he was satisfied with himself on the whole or felt that he was a failure, whether religion was talked about in the home, how often he attended religious services, whether he had friends who were religious while growing up, whether he had friends who were religious while in prison, and how often he participated in religious inmate counseling, religious services, in-prison religious seminars, and community service projects. The three-month post-release follow-up phone survey collected information on whether the respondent was involved with a church group, if the respondent was working for pay, if the respondent and his household received public assistance, if he attended religious services since his release, with whom the respondent was living, and types of treatment programs attended. Official post-release criminal records include information on the offenses the respondent was arrested and incarcerated for, prior arrests and incarcerations, rearrests, outcomes of offenses of rearrests, follow-up period to first rearrest, prison adjustment indicator, self-esteem indicator, time served, and measurements of the respondent's level of religious belief and personal identity. Demographic variables include respondent's faith, race, marital status, education, age at first arrest and incarceration, and age at incarceration for rearrest.

As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Orthodox Christians globally reacted to the possibility of contagion and risk in dialogue with theological positions about materials, their own long history which includes surviving previous pandemics and plagues, governmental and civil expectations and edicts, and pious – but often unofficial – understandings about protection and the sacrality of religious artefacts and the space of the temple. This dataset aggregates primary ethnographic research amongst Orthodox Christians in the UK, Serbia, Greece and Russia to highlight commonalities and divergences in Orthodox Christian responses to the pandemic. Examining both the theological basis, and socio-political differences, this dataset focuses on how the Orthodox theology of apophaticism and relationality impacts wider discourses of contagion (both positive and negative), and consequently compliance with public health initiatives. Comparison across diverse Orthodox settings highlights Orthodox Christian concern with the neighbour – both in terms of who may be watching (and reporting) them, and who may fall sick because of them.Aims: This project asks 'What role does the material ecology play in shaping the sociopolitics of Global Orthodoxy?' as a case study for global political discourse and the role of material in the social dynamics of religion. Impact: Orthodox Christianity is a tradition based on discourse, but there has been very little research looking at the specifics of how it works. Focusing on discourse also tends to over emphasise words and belief. But what if, like Max Muller, we insist that religion must start with what is perceived, not with concepts like 'belief in the supernatural'? This means we situate discursive traditions like Orthodoxy not in concepts but in the material culture of local and global religious groups. This reframes how we understand religion, and forefronts the impact that religious practice has upon material aspects of our experience like health, the environment and geopolitics. Context: Much social scientific interest in religion looks at the variation in the lived religion from one place to another. However, there are moments - such as in April 2018 when the President of Ukraine asked the Greek Patriarch to intervene into the Russian Church in the Ukraine - when religion can not be studied only in the local lived expression. Situations such as the conflict in Ukraine are complicated by historic tension between local Orthodox Churches. Disagreements in the interpretation of the theology of the body, person, and environment foment political tension within the Churches, between the Churches and external bodies, and between nations. The materiality of discourse must be seen as central to the form and practice of the tradition. Research: Framed in terms of three research domains, this project focuses on the material conditions of Global Orthodox sociopolitics, conducting research amongst Orthodox Christians and religious institutions. The project investigates how the properties and affordances of the material ecology (including the body, the built environment and wider 'natural' order) shape and are marshalled within the discourse of the Orthodox Churches. The three domains are the Body, Person, and Environment. The Body domain addresses issues such as medical interventions, like IVF and organ donation, which are, across Global Orthodoxy, contentious to varying degrees. The material body becomes a place for negotiating ethical goods (eg extending life, fertility, honouring God). The Person domain examines the variance in permission different churches grant concerning family and marriage practices (eg divorce, family planning). There is also a mounting discourse around identity politics, with some voices pushing for an open approach to homosexuality and women clergy. The material of the body, person, and Church are marshalled as the grounding for historically contingent, philosophically premised, and scientifically inflected arguments for or against 'progressive' movements. Finally, the Environment domain examines the relationship between humans, specific locations, and the earth as a whole. Orthodox theologians highlight an emphasis on 'stewardship of the earth' and call for active engagement in ecological conservation. Issues such as Global Warming take an explicitly religious imperative, as scientific data points to human failure to fulfil their God-given role as caretakers. The control of land (including places like Crimea and Jerusalem) also becomes a religious duty with geopolitical impact. Output: This project will produce one academic book on the material aspects of the sociopolitics of Orthodox Christianity, a book written for a general audience looking at key case studies around contemporary issues in Orthodoxy, six academic articles, white papers and policy advice on various issues relating to the health and wellbeing of Orthodox Christians and their homelands, and pamphlets written with stakeholder community leaders to help address social issues within the community settings. Data collected by a combination of ethnographic methods, including deep hanging out, participant observation, and informal conversations.