1. Developing and Archiving International Religion Data Brian J. Grim Roger Finke (Grim@psu.edu) Pennsylvania State University Association of Religion Data Archives

2. Starting in July, also in cooperation with the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life Washington, DC Research supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation

3. Situation Religion, religiously-related values, and socio- religious conflict are important and growing forces in the world today: - whether due to the irony of secularization - or due to an increasing supply of religious competition.

4. Problem Demographic data on religion around the globe come from a limited number of sources, e.g., - Oxford’s World Christian Encyclopedia - CIA’s World Factbook Religious values data are limited, e.g., - World Values Survey - Global Attitudes Project (Pew)

5. “Solutions” Collect more religion-specific data, e.g., - Pew’s current 9-country Pentecostalism poll Centralize data from existing sources, e.g., - WVS, GAP, WCD, etc. (incl. aggregate database) - Other sources (see handout) Innovatively generate new data, e.g., coding: - International Religious Freedom (IRF) Reports

6. State Dept. IRF Reports (annual)

7. Coding of IRF Reports

8. Indicators of Data’s Validity

9. … where the law and/or constitution provide for freedom of religion. … where the state does not defer to religious authorities on life-course issues. The number of countries = 173 150

10. … where established or existing religions try to shut out other religions. … where people are discriminated against based on religious identity or activity. The number of countries = 98 125

11. … where a government bureau supervises religious affairs. … where there is religious violence. The number of countries = 81 104

12. … where there are religious tensions reported. The number of countries = 143 = 73% of countries World Average AfricaEast AsiaEurope/ Eurasia Near East & N Africa South Asia Western Hemisph. 73%72%74%77%95%88%53%

13. Conclusions Religion can and must be better understood. A specific focus on empirical socio-religious data is needed. These data must be archived and made available to multiple audiences: - researchers - educators - the press - policy-makers

14. www.TheARDA.com