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The death of star musician Prince has prompted reflections that are many their life – including their spiritual faith. Prince, who had been raised as being 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 make-up simply significantly less 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, may also be unique in lots of different ways. Listed below are a facts that are few Jehovah’s Witnesses in the usa today, predicated on Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape research:

Demographics

Jehovah’s Witnesses are being among the most racially and ethnically diverse groups that are religious America. A maximum of four-in-ten users of 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 blended battle.

Most Jehovah’s Witnesses – roughly two-thirds (65%) – are women, while just 35% are males. Christians around the world are more inclined to be ladies 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. groups that are religious Jehovah’s Witnesses tend become less educated. A good greater part of adult Jehovah’s Witnesses (63%) haven’t 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 retention that is low in accordance with other U.S. spiritual teams. Among all U.S. grownups who have been raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses, two-thirds (66%) no further recognize utilizing the team. in comparison, about two-thirds of these who had been raised as evangelical Protestants (65%) and Mormons (64%) nevertheless state they’ve been people in those groups that are respective.

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

Spiritual values and techniques

Jehovah’s Witnesses identify as Christians, however their philosophy are very different off their Christians in a few methods. As an example, they show that Jesus may be the son of Jesus but is perhaps not section of a Trinity.

By conventional measures of spiritual dedication, Jehovah’s Witnesses are very extremely spiritual major U.S. spiritual teams. Nine-in-ten Jehovah’s Witnesses (90%) state faith is vital inside their life, while comparable stocks state they rely on Jesus with absolute certainty (90 percent) and therefore the Bible may be the expressed term of Jesus (94%).

Our study bought at minimum two other ways that are interesting which Jehovah’s Witnesses get noticed 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 all of the U.S. Christians whom rely on 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.

Weighed against U.S. Christians general, Jehovah’s Witnesses are specifically more likely to state they attend spiritual solutions at least one time per week (85%, weighed against 47% of most 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 most likely than U.S. Christians general to take part in prayer or scripture research teams also to read scripture at the very 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 simply 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 have actually constantly existed within their form that is present since start of time.

But Jehovah’s Witnesses try not to commonly advocate of these thinking within the sphere that is political. The denomination shows that its users should stay politically abstain and neutral from voting or playing “any action to alter governments.”

That is mirrored inside our polling. Three-quarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses (75%) state they have been governmental independents that do maybe maybe not lean toward either major event. Half (50%) decrease to respond to a concern about governmental ideology (i.e., if they describe their governmental views as 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 respond to issue.

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