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 an adventist that is seventh-day became a Jehovah’s Witness as a grown-up and went to solutions in the house state of Minnesota.
Jehovah’s Witnesses, whom make-up simply not as much as 1% of U.S. grownups, are notable for their door-to-door proselytism. But users of this denomination, which includes its origins in 19th-century America, may also be unique in a lot of alternative methods. Listed below are a facts that are few Jehovah’s Witnesses in america today, predicated on 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 participate in any one racial and cultural back ground: 36% are white, 32% are Hispanic, 27% are black colored and 6% are another competition or race that is mixed.
Most Jehovah’s Witnesses – roughly two-thirds (65%) – are women, while just 35% are males. Christians globally are more inclined to be ladies than guys, but this sex space is specially big when you look at the context of U.S. Christian teams. For example, 54% of U.S. Catholics are ladies.
Weighed against other U.S. spiritual teams, Jehovah’s Witnesses tend become less educated. A good almost all adult Jehovah’s Witnesses (63%) haven’t any significantly more than a senior high school diploma|school that is high}, weighed against, as an example, 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 have been raised as Jehovah’s Witnesses, two-thirds (66%) not any longer recognize utilizing the team. By 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.
From the side that is flip about two-thirds (65%) of current adult Jehovah’s Witnesses are converts – like Prince, these people were raised an additional faith.
Spiritual opinions and techniques
Jehovah’s Witnesses identify as Christians, however their values will vary off their Christians in a few means. By way of example, they show that Jesus could be the son of Jesus it is maybe not section of a Trinity.
By conventional measures of spiritual dedication, Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the more very spiritual U.S. that is major religious. Nine-in-ten Jehovah’s Witnesses (90%) state faith is vital inside their everyday lives, while comparable stocks state they rely on Jesus with absolute certainty (90per cent) 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 be noticed inside their thinking. For example, while 1 / 2 of Jehovah’s Witnesses state they rely on paradise, not many (7%) state they have confidence in hell, the standard image of that is challenged because of the denomination’s teaching. 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 could be the one real faith resulting in eternal life; no more than three-in-ten U.S. Christians (29%) think this about their particular faith that is religious.
Compared to U .S. Christians general, Jehovah’s Witnesses are especially prone to state they attend spiritual solutions one or more times a week (85%, weighed against 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 share that is surprisingly faith with other people at least one time per week (76% vs. 26%). In addition they tend to be 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 spiritual actions.
Personal and views that are political
Like a great many other very christians that are religious Jehovah’s Witnesses have a tendency to just take conservative jobs on social problems. As an example, three-quarters (75%) state abortion should always be unlawful in every or most cases, while comparable stocks oppose same-sex wedding and state homosexuality must certanly be frustrated by culture (76% each). Approximately three-quarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses (74%) additionally reject development, saying people always existed inside their current type considering that the start of the time.
But Jehovah’s Witnesses usually do not commonly advocate for those philosophy when you look at the sphere that is political. The denomination shows that its people should stay politically basic and abstain from voting or taking part in “any action to alter governments.”
This can be mirrored inside 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 respond to a concern about governmental ideology (in other terms., whether they describe their governmental views as conservative, moderate or liberal). & most Jehovah’s Witnesses (64%), whenever expected they are not registered or decline to answer the question if they are registered to vote, say.
Note: the past two paragraphs beneath the “Demographics” part were added.