Where is protestant practiced today

In many countries, sizable minorities among both Catholics and Protestants roughly four-in-ten or more Catholics in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy and France and comparable shares of Protestants in Switzerland and the UK say the two groups are more different religiously than they are similar.

These are among the main findings of a new Pew Research Center survey of 24, adults across 15 countries in Western Europe, conducted from April to August through telephone interviews on both cellphones and landlines. The study, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation, is part of a larger effort by Pew Research Center to understand religious change and its impact on societies around the world.

The new surveys are nationally representative, with samples of approximately 1, or more respondents in each country, allowing researchers to analyze the opinions of Catholics in 11 countries and of Protestants in eight countries.

The results of the U. Roughly five centuries after the rupture between Protestantism and Catholicism, Western Europe still mostly consists of countries whose populations are either predominantly Catholic or predominantly Protestant. Catholics form the biggest group in nine of the countries surveyed, largely to the south. Protestants are the largest religious group in five countries, all in the north. But even Germany is more religiously homogeneous on a regional level, with more Protestants in the north, Catholics in the south and people without a religious affiliation in the east.

See this sidebar for more on the Reformation. Many Europeans identify with particular streams of Protestant Christianity rather than with Protestantism as a whole. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this analysis, Anglicans are included in the broadly defined Protestant category, along with the other churches that broke with Rome starting in the 16th century.

But secularization trends are evident throughout the region. In addition, Catholics and Protestants in Western Europe generally show low levels of religious observance. Attendance at church also is fairly low among both groups, although Catholics are somewhat more likely than Protestants to say they attend church at least once a week.

Historically, Protestants have emphasized that people are saved not by their own good works or by penance, but by faith in the sacrifice of Jesus, through which God chose to forgive the sins of all humans. Today, however, Western European Catholic and Protestant laity are no longer starkly divided by this theological issue: More Catholics and Protestants say both faith and good works are necessary to get into heaven than say faith alone leads to salvation.

And considerable shares of both groups do not take a clear position on this issue, perhaps reflecting a lack of familiarity with the theological intricacies. But even Protestants in every country surveyed except Norway are more likely to say that both elements are necessary for salvation than to take the traditionally Protestant sola fide position. In Germany, Switzerland and the UK, Protestants are just as likely as Catholics — if not more likely — to espouse this traditional Catholic belief.

If one date must be picked as the starting point of the Protestant Reformation, the conventional choice would be Oct. Rather than describing a single Reformation that suddenly divided the Western church into two very different parts, however, many historians now speak of multiple reformations and emphasize the continuities as well as the differences between medieval Catholicism and Protestantism.

Prior to Luther who was born in and died in , reformers in the Middle Ages included Peter Waldo in northern Italy circa , John Wycliffe in England circa and Jan Hus in what is now the Czech Republic circa Still, Luther and the year play a pivotal role in the historical narrative. Initially, Luther railed mostly against one Catholic Church practice — the sale of indulgences — which he viewed as a form of corruption.

He soon was arguing that popes and grand councils were fallible, and only the Bible was infallible. The population of Christians in India is growing particularly in southern India. With a population of about 48 million, approximately 40 million are Christians. The high number of Protestants is attributed to the fact that it was a British colony. Roman Catholic Christianity accounts for History considers Germany as the birthplace of Protestants, a group of Christians who were against many of the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.

Today, nearly There are more white Protestants than black Protestants in the state. In addition, Pew Research Center found that 54 percent of Brazilians who were raised Catholic now identify as Protestant What makes these new Protestant churches more attractive than traditional Roman Catholic churches?

Here are some other factors that have been suggested based on both published scholarly sources and personal research :. Becoming a pastor in a Neo-Pentecostal church does not usually require formal seminary training and is much easier to join.

Catholic priests must undergo much more official training, which has led to a shortage of native Brazilian priests and the use of foreigners from Europe or Spanish-speaking countries to fill vacancies. This can cause a disconnect between adherents and their priests.

This is also seen in more emotional, participatory services for those attending. Pentecostal churches have many rehabilitation programs for drug addicts and garner followers through helping them and their families. These factors vary depending on the specific country, but they show a drop in Catholic followers and a spike in Protestant followers, usually former Catholics.

And these changes not only affect culture in Brazil and other countries, but also the political arena, much like evangelicals in the United States. In fact, recent regional elections have seen more Protestant candidates like Marcelo Crivella, a senator and bishop, who was elected mayor of Rio de Janeiro, do well Prada, Perhaps in the coming decades, the plurality of religion especially Christianity in Latin America could change the face of the continent.

Bell, J. Religion in Latin America. Pew Research Center. The Global Catholic Population.