Woodberry Robert D, Bradshaw Matt, Vander Weele Tyler J, Johnson Byron R
Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University, One Bear Place 97236, Waco, TX, 76798, USA.
Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA.
Sci Rep. 2025 Apr 30;15(1):13299. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-83531-z.
Who shares their faith with people who have different religious views? This article examines 'faith sharing' across 22 religiously diverse countries. To our knowledge, this is the first study of 'faith sharing' across national and religious contexts. Evangelism can be controversial, but both historically and in our data, it is widespread-including in societies that restrict religious liberty. 'Faith sharing' is lowest in Europe, Japan, Australia, and the US and highest in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia (excluding Japan). Within countries, there is no consistent pattern about which religious groups share their faith more. Previous research about 'faith sharing' focuses on Christians in the US, but the factors that predict 'faith sharing' in the US often do not generalize. In fact, the association with age, education, marital status, employment status, and immigration status is exactly the opposite in many societies. Because past comparative research ignores this topic and because so much of what we think we know about faith sharing is based on US Christians, we hope this article will spur further research and expand our understanding of religious persuasion and global religious change.
谁会与持有不同宗教观点的人分享自己的信仰呢？本文考察了22个宗教多元化国家中的“信仰分享”情况。据我们所知，这是第一项跨越国家和宗教背景对“信仰分享”进行的研究。传教可能会引发争议，但无论是在历史上还是在我们的数据中，它都很普遍——包括在那些限制宗教自由的社会中。“信仰分享”在欧洲、日本、澳大利亚和美国最低，而在非洲、拉丁美洲、中东和亚洲（不包括日本）最高。在各个国家内部，关于哪些宗教团体更愿意分享其信仰，并没有一致的模式。先前关于“信仰分享”的研究主要集中在美国的基督徒身上，但在美国预测“信仰分享”的因素往往并不具有普遍性。事实上，在许多社会中，与年龄、教育程度、婚姻状况、就业状况和移民身份的关联恰恰相反。由于过去的比较研究忽略了这个话题，而且我们对信仰分享的许多认知都基于美国的基督徒，我们希望本文能激发进一步的研究，并扩展我们对宗教劝导和全球宗教变化的理解。
