A Renewed Research Agenda to Address Global Religious Violence and Foster Religious Pluralism

Abstract

The ability of religion to both unite and divide us is a central research topic across academic disciplines. There is important research on the conditions of religious pluralism and tolerance, violence and discrimination, yet disciplinary silos and disconnects between the academy and the public remain barriers to progress. To investigate these problems, we convened 56 scholars of religious pluralism and conflict from different national contexts over a two- year period and conducted focus groups around three broad questions: What are the key issues in defining religious pluralism and religious conflict? What are the most salient contexts in which to study religious pluralism and conflict, both geographically and institutionally? What tensions and opportunities are most important for advancing public scholarship on religious pluralism and conflict? We find that (1) religious pluralism is best conceptualized as an active interreligious engagement that honors differences, (2) achieving research clarity and focus requires specific interdisciplinary dialogue and tools, (3) identifying the conditions under which pluralism and conflict thrive demands diverse methods across sub-national, national, and global contexts, and (4) scholars must engage policymakers, religious leaders, and religious communities to advance religious pluralism. This study provides critical parameters for a future public facing research agenda.

1. Introduction

1.1. The Need for a New Research Agenda

Religion’s ability to separate us or bring us together is one of the central issues of our time (Ecklund et al. 2019). And yet, we still do not fully understand why and how religion sometimes divides and sometimes unites, and we know even less about how to engage the public with transformative scholarship to move the needle on these issues. Scholars across disciplines have contributed significant and important research on the conditions of religious pluralism and tolerance, violence and discrimination, yet disciplinary silos and disconnects between the academy and religious leaders and communities remain barriers to synthetic understanding that leads to societal change.

To address these shortcomings, we have synthesized the findings of 42 focus groups conducted with leading scholars of religion who study global religious violence and pluralism in different nations and from different disciplinary perspectives. We conducted these focus groups during two global convenings in 2024 and 2025, and we have synthesized these expert insights to inform a robust agenda for research on religious conflict and pluralism over the next decade. Our sample of 56 scholars who participated in focus groups includes intentionally sampled scholars in sociology, economics, religious studies, international relations, political science, anthropology, and communications. Below we outline, based on their insights, what a robust research agenda to understand and address religious conflict and violence as well as foster pluralistic religious engagement in different state contexts and across different institutions might involve.

In this article, we review the findings of our focus groups to answer the following questions: (1) What are the key issues in definitions of religious pluralism for researchers and practitioners? (2) How might an interdisciplinary approach to studying religious pluralism inform the methods we employ? (3) What are the most timely and salient contexts in which to study religious pluralism, both geographically and institutionally? (4) What tensions and opportunities are most salient for advancing public scholarship and translation of research on religious pluralism? Synthesizing the findings of our focus groups, we discuss the following broad platforms for a research agenda on religious pluralism: (1) A basic definition of religious pluralism focuses on active interreligious engagement that respects, rather than diminishes, religious differences. (2) Definitional clarity on religious pluralism will require interdisciplinary dialogue. (3) Identifying the conditions leading to religious pluralism rather than hostility will require both diverse methods (e.g., combining in-depth case studies with large-scale comparative analysis) and research on a multiplicity of contexts at the sub-national, national, and global levels. (4) We need a robust strategy for public-facing scholarship that engages policy makers as well as religious leaders and religious communities.

1.2. Global Religious Violence and Global Religious Peace

Religion has been a central source of violent conflict in the world. From international clashes over religion in Northern Ireland, Bosnia, and Sudan to recent attacks on mosques, synagogues, and churches in the U.S., there are plenty of examples of religious violence and strife. Religion has also been a central source of peacemaking in the world. We have examples of the role of Black church leaders in the American Civil Rights movement and the influence of Jainism and Hinduism on the nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi (Morris 1986). That religion can be implicated in both violence and peacemaking has generated not only debate but also significant research. Scholars have been understandably interested in how conflicts around the world are linked to religion, and yet there are important reasons to expand and intensify this research on the conditions under which religion leads to conflict and hostility or to peace and religious pluralism. Below we provide three reasons for a renewed research agenda on religious violence and religious pluralism.

1.3. Most of the World Is Religious

One of the most important reasons to examine religious pluralism as well as religious hostility and conflict is that a large portion of the world is religious and will be for the foreseeable future (Hackett et al. 2025; Nadeem 2022). It is easy for those of us in the Western academy, which tends towards appreciating and even advocating for secularism, to think of religion as primarily in decline or retreat (Berger 1999; Bruce 2002; Casanova 1994; Chaves 1994; Ecklund et al. 2008). But, when we carefully study the world around us, most of the world is religious. Recent research shows that between 88% and 76% of the world’s population identify with some religious tradition as of 2020 (Hackett et al. 2025; Johnson and Crossing 2021; Zurlo 2025). Muslims, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists together make up about 75% of the world’s population, and this is expected to rise to over 80% by 2050 (Johnson and Crossing 2021; Nadeem 2022). Also, it is estimated that by 2050 around 90% of the world’s population is expected to identify with some religion (Johnson and Crossing 2021; Nadeem 2022).

1.4. Religious Conflicts Abound

Religious conflicts are all around us. Religion-based discrimination at the personal level is a significant problem today. A national study conducted in 2020 (Scheitle and Ecklund 2020) found that over one quarter of all Americans report sensing hostility due to their religion. When examining by religion, the results are stark for some groups. For example, 62% of Muslims report sensing hostility from others due to their religion. Additionally, 36% of Jewish respondents and over 20% of Christians and Buddhists reported religious hostility. In fact, even 32% of those with no religion report experiencing hostility for not having a religion. In more recent research, following the onset of the war between Hamas and Israel, these numbers have shifted. In a study conducted in July of 2024 (Ecklund et al. 2025), researchers found that nearly 75% of Jews in the U.S. report ever experiencing religious bias, followed by 56% of Muslims. Jews were also the most likely to report an increase in religious bias (23%), followed by Muslims at 16%. And 75% of Jews were concerned about future religious bias, followed by 57% of Muslims. A considerable number of other religious groups were also concerned about future bias—38% of Evangelicals, 23% of Catholics, 15% of Atheists, and 13% of the religiously unaffiliated were concerned that they would experience religious discrimination in the future. Religious discrimination remains a significant concern across religious groups, including those who experience discrimination for not being religious.

And religious conflict at the societal level also remains a major problem. A 2024 report from the Pew Research Center shows that both government restrictions and social hostilities on the basis of religion reached an all-time high in 2022—30% of countries had high or very high levels of restrictions on religion, and 23% of countries had high or very high levels of social hostilities involving religion (Majumdar 2024). Religious differences have played an important role in violence in contexts like Myanmar, where military conflict and communal tensions between Rohingya Muslim and Rakhine Buddhist communities have left a wake of violence, particularly decimating the Rohingya (Human Rights Watch 2024); in Denmark, where Muslims are targeted by harassment, discrimination, and hate crimes (Gregersen and Meret 2019); and in Nigeria, where Islamist groups carried out attacks on Christian communities in recent years (Onyulo 2025; The Associated Press 2025). A recent report shows that in 1975, religion was a factor in only 3% of global violent conflicts, but by 2015, religion was a factor in 55% of global violent conflicts (Svensson and Nilsson 2018). This rise in global religion-related violence can lead some to overlook the role of religious people and religious leaders in cultivating peace and local diplomacy (Gingerich et al. 2017). However, it is important to engage religion as both a potential source of conflict as well as a tool for peace (United States Institute of Peace 2006).

1.5. Religion Sometimes Unites

Religion has played a critical role in supporting humanitarian and human rights movements for centuries (Dromi 2020; Mataic and Goff 2021; Shah et al. 2012; Stamatov 2015). Many of the world’s major religious traditions promote ethical teachings centered on tolerance and reciprocity. The principle commonly referred to as the Golden Rule—“do to others as you would have them do to you”—appears in various forms across numerous faiths, including Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and Judaism (Armstrong 2007). Despite this shared moral foundation, there remains a persistent gap in understanding of why religious teachings on tolerance take hold in some contexts and fail in others.

Empirical studies indicate that religious commitment can foster generosity, hospitality, and other pro-social behaviors (Putnam et al. 2012). However, these positive outcomes are often bounded by in-group affiliation. In-group pro-sociality is frequently extended only to members of one’s own religious or cultural community, though there are good examples of religious minority status predisposing some groups to widen their circle of concern to other religious minorities in crisis (Braun 2016). In contrast, much of the literature on religious conflict emphasizes the divisive and sometimes violent implications of religious difference. Scholars in this area warn that religious tensions may become increasingly entrenched in the decades ahead (Juergensmeyer 2017; Woodhead and Heelas 2005). While it is important to engage with fundamental religious differences, a purely conflict-driven approach risks reinforcing pessimism and offers limited strategies for cultivating interreligious cooperation.

Rather than emphasizing religious difference, scholarship in the field of interfaith dialogue often overemphasizes theological commonalities. Although such approaches may foster goodwill, they sometimes obscure meaningful doctrinal differences that shape moral and political commitments (Eck 2003). Minimizing difference can inhibit the kind of respectful, substantive engagement necessary for intellectual growth and transformation. Additionally, while existing literature on religious freedom demonstrates how legal protections for diversity of religious expression foster human rights and mitigate religion-related conflict (Finke and Goff 2023; Grim and Finke 2011; Philpott 2019; Sarkissian 2015), it pays less attention to how local actors negotiate, rather than minimize, religious difference.

Taken together, these various strains of scholarship provide important reference points for a broad understanding of religious conflict, violence, pluralism and collaboration. But they also reveal difficulties in developing synthetic insights about the conditions leading to religious conflict, how to bring together diverging understandings and analyses of religious pluralism and tolerance, and how best to deploy scholarship to catalyze positive social change in these areas. There is a need to develop understanding of and research questions on the definition, conditions, consequences, and challenges for change with regard to religious pluralism, which span disciplinary, national, and research subject boundaries.

2. Materials and Methods

To fill this void, from 2024 to 2025 we convened focus groups of subject matter experts—scholars of religious pluralism, conflict, violence, and tolerance whose research examines these topics in nearly twenty countries, including Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Israel, Lebanon, Nigeria, Oman, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Zimbabwe, as well as religion-specific foci on Christian, Jain, Islamic, and Buddhist religious traditions. The scholars were chosen via an invited call to apply to present and participate. For the 2024 convening, graduate and undergraduate researchers at our institution created a representative list of global scholars working on religious pluralism, conflict, and violence and grouped them by discipline, field of study, current department affiliation, university affiliation and position, most recent article published on religious pluralism, and highest cited article (per Google citation) published on religious pluralism. This list was merged with our existing database of scholars working in the field of religious pluralism and violence to make a total of 123 scholars. We think this list is representative of scholars who have published modern works on religious pluralism and religious violence. Then, we narrowed the list to focus on expertise across disciplines as judged by recent publications, regional, disciplinary and institutional breadth, and a mix of senior and junior scholars. Invited calls to apply were sent to a list of 59 invitees. The 2025 convening was sent to a more curated list of scholars with the ability to do research that contributes to conceptual, methodological, and regional gaps identified in the 2024 convening. Focus groups were conducted during these symposia, the first held in the United States, which drew 50 junior and senior scholars, and the second held in France, which drew a smaller and more targeted group of 12 scholars.1 The second drew senior scholars from institutions including the Catholic University of America, Fordham University, the University of Oxford, Freie Universität Berlin, the American University of Beirut, the National University of Singapore, and Rice University, and the event created a rare space for scholars from diverse academic and cultural backgrounds to engage in deep, interdisciplinary dialogue.

In total, we conducted 42 focus groups that included 56 scholars (note that scholars participated in multiple focus groups). During the first set of focus groups, we asked our gathered scholars about the big questions concerning the definition of and the conditions facilitating religious pluralism, tolerance, conflict and violence, as well as about challenges to interdisciplinary work and public scholarship. During our 2024 convening, across two focus groups, we asked:

• From your perspective and research as a scholar, how would you define and describe religious pluralism?
• Given your own research, what are the most important issues that need to be addressed in research on religious pluralism, tolerance, conflict, and violence?
• From your own research, or from others, what are the most important factors facilitating religious pluralism? What are the most important outcomes of religious pluralism?
• From your experience, what are the challenges and opportunities in research on religious pluralism, tolerance, conflict, and violence?
• Additionally, what opportunities and challenges have you encountered with respect to interdisciplinary research on these issues?
• What institutes, centers, or programs are important contributors to research on religious pluralism, tolerance, conflict, and violence?
• How might interdisciplinary research advance our understanding of religious pluralism in the future?
• What places, regions, and societal domains, like business or education, seem most promising for studying the conditions and consequences of religious pluralism, tolerance, violence, and conflict?
• Given your own research and what you’ve seen at this conference, what are the gaps in research on religious pluralism, tolerance, conflict, and violence that most need to be addressed?

During our 2025 convening, we asked the following questions across multiple focus groups:

• What is the best work currently on concepts and methods related to research on religious pluralism?
• Who is doing the best work methodologically? Who is doing influential work?
• What are the nation-states that need to be studied?
• Whose research is most influential on states and actors where there is high religious violence?
• Whose work is having the most impact in regions where there’s conflict and violence?
• Which nation-states might be best to study to explore religious conflict in institutions, such as medicine, workplaces, higher education, and sports?
• What does a healthy religious pluralism look like across different national contexts at the institutional level?
• What might be some examples of healthy religious pluralism in different national contexts at the institutional level?

Each of the focus groups had a note taker who transcribed what the scholars said in response to the questions. After the convenings and focus groups, the notes were collated by responses to each question and analyzed by the authors of this paper alongside two postdoctoral fellows and two graduate students to achieve intercoder reliability. We identified common themes within and across question responses and grouped the themes into four larger categories: (1) definitions of religious pluralism, (2) methods of studying religious pluralism, (3) contexts in which to study religious pluralism, and a fourth theme discussed below.

We gathered and analyzed a second corpus of data from the convenings. Following each scholar’s presentation in the 2024 convening, we also asked the entire group of scholars to reflect on the following questions: (1) Recognizing that religious diversity and religious pluralism are distinct concepts, what did we learn about religious diversity from this panel? (2) What did we learn about religious pluralism? (3) And, what did we learn about the conditions under which religious violence or conflict occurs? Because this format of data collection was in the large group, responses were shorter and limited. Using the same coding process as with the focus groups, we synthesized the discussions and identified themes. Themes were similar to that of the focus groups, except for a discussion that emerged about public scholarship. Consequently, we added public scholarship and translation as a fourth area of interest and concern.

In the next section, we present the findings of these discussions, grouped into the four broad categories. Our findings are framed in response to these four questions:

• What are the key issues in defining religious pluralism for researchers and practitioners?
• How might an interdisciplinary approach to studying religious pluralism inform the methods we employ?
• What are the most timely and salient contexts in which to study religious pluralism, both geographically and institutionally?
• What tensions and opportunities are most salient for advancing public scholarship and translation of research on religious pluralism?

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Definitions

There are several tensions in defining religious pluralism, starting with the fact that scholars have not yet agreed on a single definition of the term. This lack of consensus is partly due to limited interdisciplinary work and not enough meaningful dialogue between scholars and religious leaders and their communities. In order to move toward a more widely accepted definition, it is necessary to define key terms like “rights,” “progress,” “equality,” and even “religion” itself. Without this specific language, it is hard to make real progress. For instance, the idea of “human rights” is not universally understood the same way—for example, some religious communities view LGBTQ+ rights as a complicated or even controversial issue. These disagreements show how religious rights and freedoms can sometimes clash with each other or with broader human rights, creating serious challenges for defining what religious pluralism should look like.

Another major tension lies in how different religious groups, especially those with varying levels of privilege and power, view the goals of religious pluralism. What one group sees as “progress” might not be recognized the same way by another. There is also the issue of whether all religions are treated equally by those advocating for pluralism. An associate professor of sociology pointed out the difference between a group simply having rights versus having the power to define the “rules of the game,” including definitions of pluralism and what counts as religious freedom and to whom it applies. Additionally, it can be challenging to distinguish between religion and culture, particularly when considering indigenous religious groups where these lines are often blurred, and attempting to distinguish can complicate more than clarify issues of conflict. All these issues highlight the complex and sometimes conflicting elements involved in trying to define religious pluralism in a meaningful way.

With the above in mind, we develop key takeaways for defining religious pluralism in future research. Scholars distinguished religious pluralism both from the more descriptive concept of religious diversity and the concept of religious tolerance. It is helpful to use religious diversity to describe the mere fact of a plurality of religious views, identities, and groups, while religious pluralism preceded by words like “covenantal” or “healthy” may more productively refer to different orientations towards how to incorporate and negotiate this diversity in public life. In contrast to religious tolerance, religious pluralism was framed as a more active concept. While “mere tolerance” suggests “putting up with” others’ beliefs, according to our respondents, pluralism involves active engagement and respect across religious differences.

To fully understand and support religious pluralism, our respondents argued that scholars must take an interdisciplinary approach. Theological and philosophical scholarship is important for critiquing and developing normative frameworks for pluralism. The examination of religious traditions and texts helps to root religious differences and similarities in and between religious traditions, and social scientific methods help to investigate religious pluralism as it is thought of, discussed, and lived in daily life. Additionally, scholarship needs to attend to how religious identity intersects with other aspects of identity—such as race, gender, or nationality—and how those intersections shape people’s experiences with religious diversity.

Scholars also need to examine internal differences within religious groups to understand whether members actually agree on what religious pluralism should look like. Pluralism is not just a theological or social idea—it is deeply political. For example, one scholar, a professor of sociology, politics, and public policy, describes religious pluralism as a normative political concept rather than a descriptive one. As he elaborates: “religious pluralism does not or should not just describe the co-presence of a number of religions but should be a normative political concept. Seen in that way, it will become apparent that mere co-existence or toleration or rights of individuals to religious freedom falls short of the promise of multiculturalism as recognition and respect for diverse religious group identities” (Modood 2024).2

This means that governments and political systems actively shape the extent to which pluralism is allowed or suppressed through laws and social structures. Depending on where a religion is located, it might be a majority in one area but a minority in another, which affects how it is treated. A professor of sociology captured this well by defining pluralism as a “set of social arrangements shaped by specific cultural and historical contexts”—such as which religious holidays are nationally recognized or what religious symbols are publicly accepted. These arrangements reveal how deeply politics is involved in the reality of religious pluralism and foregrounds it as a category that shifts over time (Steensland 2024).3 Religious pluralism as a political-normative ideal also differs in content and is state-managed in different ways. One scholar in the social sciences presented the case of the Gulf Region, where significant differences exist across nations. Based on extensive case studies of the Gulf states, the scholar described the different ways these states approach religious pluralism. Bahrain demonstrates a “sectarian pluralism” which is very different from the UAE’s form of tolerance that is largely performative and diplomatically focused, and these both differ from Oman, which takes a more community-based approach. This presentation provided some preliminary evidence for future research on states’ approach to religious pluralism beyond the secularization models of many Western nations (Vaidyanathan 2024).

3.2. Diversity in Methodological Approach

The study of religious pluralism is fraught with challenges due to inherent tensions in both methods and disciplines. One significant issue is that different research methods can lead to varied conclusions, largely because the data and content are often subjective. While scholars may propose a methods research agenda that incorporates quantitative political aspects into qualitative sociological work, this effort highlights the limitations of trying to measure and classify complex religious phenomena. Additionally, the academic environment itself poses a major hurdle. Despite the recognized need for diverse methodologies to properly define and study religious pluralism, the academy writ large often fails to support truly interdisciplinary work in terms of resources and tenure promotion cases, creating a disconnect between the ideal approach and the practical realities of scholarly pursuits.

Another key tension arises from disparities in resources among different groups, which can influence who controls the narrative on religious pluralism. These resource differences, which exist across countries, continents, and even among various religious, ethnic, and racial groups within a single nation, are often tied to varying levels of trust. This is particularly evident when scholars use methods like historical or ethnographic fieldwork. For instance, a marginalized religious community, due to its religion, race, or immigrant status, might be reluctant to grant access to a scholar from a more privileged group, fearing that the research will misrepresent or exploit their experiences. This lack of trust highlights how power dynamics and social hierarchies can directly impede research and shape the resulting understanding of religious pluralism.

In studying religious pluralism, it is essential to involve multiple disciplines and methods to gain a more comprehensive understanding. One key takeaway is the need for greater cross-fertilization of ideas—not only among scholars from different academic disciplines but also between scholars and religious leaders and communities. Such collaboration can enrich perspectives and foster more nuanced analyses. Additionally, incorporating historical approaches is crucial, as religious conflicts often cannot be fully understood without considering their broader historical contexts, such as war, colonialism, the Holocaust, and the displacement of indigenous traditions. Examining scriptures, economic conditions, and the formation of dominant religions in specific regions can all contribute valuable insights.

3.3. Contexts

The study of religious pluralism across different institutional domains and geopolitical contexts reveals a number of core tensions, especially regarding the role of the state. State actors play a pivotal role in shaping the discourse and implementation of religious pluralism, often providing funding, visibility, and policy frameworks for such initiatives. However, this involvement can come at a cost. Over-politicization, unequal support for certain groups, and media misrepresentation are common risks. As a professor of sociology points out, many governments claim religious neutrality, yet their policies and resource allocations often betray partiality. As she notes, “For example, French laïcité is often thought [of] as state neutrality but really, it’s a system of state control over religions and one that is riddled with biases. Catholic institutions, for example, enjoy certain protections [such] as cultural heritage, but for Islamic institutions, it’s an uphill battle merely to get building approvals.” Regarding bans on religious “symbols,” “Muslim girls who are barred from wearing the headscarf at school do not view the ban as a neutral policy but view it as a form of exclusion.” Even in the U.S., validation of Christian needs is far greater than that given to other faith communities” (Parvez 2024).4 This discrepancy highlights the need for careful scrutiny of the state’s role—not only as a facilitator but also as a potential gatekeeper or even obstacle to genuine pluralism.

Immigration further complicates the pursuit of religious pluralism, especially when religious difference intersects with race, ethnicity, and national identity. Migrants, who frequently belong to religious minorities in either the home or host nation, often find themselves at the center of socio-political debates—particularly in Western Europe and North America. The state’s decisions about which religions receive formal recognition or accommodation often result in the marginalization of immigrant religious practices. As a social scientist emphasizes, the movement of people brings with it the movement of religious identities and traditions, creating both opportunities and frictions. Migrants often adopt strategies of adaptation or resistance, which can either bolster or challenge pluralistic ideals. He further notes:

“Religious pluralism across the world today is complexly dynamic because the vast migration of peoples across nation-state borders and from rural settlements to urban habitats, even if temporarily for work, brings with it the movement of religious identities and traditions, generating religious change as well as producing both opportunities and frictions for inter-religious relations. Migrants often adopt strategies of adaptation or resistance, which can either bolster or challenge pluralistic ideals and norms and even create new beliefs and practices that diversify the pluralism further and present issues of integration of the emergent religions” (Goh 2024).

Yet these dynamics remain underexplored in current religious pluralism research, particularly in relation to how migration policies may inadvertently create “religious refugees.”

Secularism also emerges as a double-edged sword in this field of study. In some contexts, such as France, a strong commitment to secularism has led to the marginalization or stigmatization of religion altogether. This has sparked criticism that secular states, rather than fostering neutrality, function as anti-religious institutions. Meanwhile, in regions like the United States, religion remains deeply embedded in political discourse, complicating any assumption of neutrality or uniformity in the treatment of religious groups. These contrasting models demonstrate that religious pluralism cannot be meaningfully studied in isolation—it must be examined alongside broader issues of political identity, governance, and other forms of pluralism. Comparative studies that engage with the different expressions and limits of secularism are essential for future research.

Finally, the landscape of religious pluralism is further complicated by the presence of religious intensity and the rise of identity politics—the use of collective identities, including ethno-religious identities, for political mobilization and as grounds for rights claims (Bernstein 2005)—and as modulated by social media. In regions like Africa and South Asia, intense religious expression can lead to skepticism of science and modern medicine—such as resistance to vaccines or reproductive technologies—mirroring some Western evangelical responses. Meanwhile, internal conflicts within pluralistic societies are often exacerbated by what other scholars in our focus groups described as “competitive victimhood,” where different marginalized groups vie for recognition and resources. Religious conservatives, for instance, may clash with LGBTQ+ communities or feminist movements, each framing their position as one of persecution, even as gendered communities engage with lived religious pluralism in surprising ways and those who are part of multiple communities (such as both the LGBTQ+ and religious communities) also feel marginalized. This tension raises critical questions for scholars: How can pluralism be advanced when the rights of one group are perceived to infringe upon another? Future research must address these layered dynamics, embracing the study of multiple competing identities as a methodological necessity in the study of religion in plural societies.

Future research on religious pluralism must critically expand the scope of inquiry to include groups that are often marginalized in both scholarly and public discussions. This includes not only non-religious individuals—such as atheists, agnostics, and those who identify as spiritual but not religious (SBNR)—but also adherents of indigenous and non-Abrahamic traditions, particularly those without canonical scriptures. These groups frequently experience varying degrees of social exclusion and victimization based on their religious or non-religious identities. Their consistent omission from conversations about pluralism reflects a need to reassess who is included at the table of interreligious dialogue and activity. Moreover, the inclusion of indigenous and minority religious leaders in shaping the very definition of religious pluralism and while formulating schemas for global datasets is essential (Francois 2025). Without their perspectives, definitions of pluralism risk being too narrow or tied to the structures of dominant world religions. A broader and more representative conversation is necessary—one that acknowledges the diverse ways people experience religion and spirituality in their everyday lives. Critical overarching questions that would guide this pursuit are: to what extent is pluralism embraced as a value, how has it changed over time, and under what conditions?

Institutional access remains another critical dimension of religious pluralism that demands further attention. Major world religions such as Christianity and Islam often benefit from historical and demographic advantages that grant them greater access to large-scale religious institutions. These institutions not only provide spiritual guidance but also offer material and social resources that may not be as readily available through state mechanisms. This raises important questions about whether religious adherence is driven more by belief systems or by the social benefits afforded through institutional affiliation. In light of these disparities, educational institutions—from primary schools to universities—emerge as vital spaces for fostering a more equitable form of religious pluralism (Avishai 2025; Burney 2024). By incorporating public scholarship and inclusive curricular frameworks, schools can help cultivate an informed and empathetic understanding of religious diversity, thus preparing future generations to navigate the complex realities of pluralistic societies. Here, the need for widened contexts to include social media is also clear, as the latter increasingly functions as a new kind of “location,” with its own regulatory mechanisms, state oversight, and expressive field of identity (Di 2024, 2025).

3.4. Public Scholarship on Religious Pluralism and Religious Violence

The study of religious pluralism within the context of public scholarship reveals several tensions that complicate its engagement with broader society. One major challenge, which scholars in our focus groups noted, is the challenge of engaging diverse views held by individual citizens and specific groups regarding the role of religion in society. In an important example regarding educational curricula, our scholars discussed how some conservative parents may prefer that their children learn exclusively about their own religious tradition, which conflicts with broader educational goals of fostering pluralistic understanding. This diversity of perspectives creates a delicate balancing act for scholars attempting to navigate public discourse on religion.

Another significant tension, which the scholars noted in focus groups, lies in the elitism often perpetuated in academia. Elitism can sometimes take the form of resisting engaging in public scholarship because it requires simplifying complex arguments to be accessible to non-expert audiences, limiting the reach and impact of scholarship on religious pluralism. Elitism can also lead to approaching public engagement from a “knowledge deficit” model (Sturgis and Allum 2004), such that the solution to problems of religious conflict is simply education from university-based experts. Elitism, as our scholars observed, can unhelpfully create a divide between academic knowledge and public understanding. This is complicated by the real risk of the media and the public misinterpreting scholarly work, especially when these ideas are disseminated on social media platforms, where nuanced arguments are frequently overlooked for more strident interpretations (Pandey et al. 2023).

To address these challenges, academics must consider new approaches for promoting religious pluralism through public exposure to diverse groups within society. As scholars in our study pointed out, it is essential to develop strategies not only for increasing such exposure but also for measuring its effects on religious pluralism. By brainstorming ways to enact and evaluate encounters with outside groups, scholars can better assess the extent to which religious pluralism is unfolding, thereby enhancing both the academic study and practical realization of pluralistic societies.

Studying religious pluralism in light of the demands of public scholarship reveals several important lessons. Scholars have a key role to play by making their work accessible to non-academic audiences. They should balance academic writing with public scholarship, ensuring that their research is available and understandable beyond academic circles. Scholars must also collaborate closely with religious leaders in their communities, stepping outside the confines of academia to engage in meaningful dialogue. Finally, all forms of public media should be utilized to study and promote religious pluralism. Unconventional methods, including music, art, TV shows, and comedy, offer unique lenses through which religious diversity can be explored and appreciated.

4. Conclusions

Religion has the capacity to unite and divide, to be used to foster inclusion and peacebuilding or as a justification for exclusion and violence. Scholarship on these topics has never been more urgent, yet disciplinary silos and disconnects between the academy and decision makers and practitioners, including politicians and public policy makers, as well as religious leaders and communities, remain a barrier to collective efforts to advance religious pluralism. We gathered 56 global scholars over two in-depth convenings to assess the state of the field through presentations and focus groups and to source insights for a renewed agenda for an engaged scholarship that might move the needle on religious pluralism. Synthesizing in-depth focus groups and discussions as well as scholar presentations, we argue that the future of research on religious pluralism and violence would benefit from clarity on the goal, the methods, the contexts, and attention to public engagement. We argue that advancing research on religious pluralism is most helped by (1) defining it in terms of active interreligious engagement that respects differences, (2) pursuing research clarity and focus on the concept and conditions of religious pluralism through interdisciplinary dialogue, (3) identifying the conditions for pluralism through diverse methods (case studies, comparative analysis) across sub-national, national, and global contexts, and (4) engaging in robust public-facing scholarship in dialogue with policymakers, religious leaders, and communities.