It’s a Critical Time to Bridge Religious Divides

Overview

The Pew Charitable Trusts recently conducted a multifaceted research effort on programs designed to counter negative attitudes about various religions and to promote religious pluralism. The project focused on initiatives aimed at countering bias and prejudice against individuals based on their religious or spiritual beliefs, practices, or identity; promoting understanding of and appreciation for America’s diverse faith traditions; and fostering respectful engagement among people of different religions and people with no religious affiliation. The research project’s goal was to understand what those programs look like, how they operate, and what evidence exists about their efficacy and impact.

Pew set this research in motion several months before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel. But the religious tensions heightened by the attack—and by the subsequent war and other events in the Middle East and the U.S.—made the questions raised by the research feel more urgent. Indeed, in a spring 2024 survey by Pew Research Center, 44% of Americans said there was “a lot” of discrimination against Muslims in this country, and 40% said the same regarding Jews. Both numbers were higher than in prior years.¹

The research, which sought to determine how to counter such bias and to improve relationships across religious differences, consisted of three elements:

• A literature review analyzing 61 published reports, mostly from outside the United States, that examined the efficacy of various approaches.
• A survey gathering information from 21 American organizations that offer programs addressing religious tensions and divides.
• In-depth interviews with 10 leaders from these provider organizations, chosen to be representative in terms of size, approach, and religious affiliation, if any.

Among the central findings of the research:

• There is no firm consensus among those who have studied this field about what sorts of programs work best. Nor is there a firm base of evidence to determine which programs work best. Program providers and funders would like to have both an answer to that important question and the evidence to support it.
• The literature suggests, however, that approaches combining contact among members of different faiths with educational programs and/or skills training demonstrate the strongest evidence of attitudinal change among participants. Indeed, many funders and providers alike believe strongly in the value of contact programs, which they view as helping members of different religious groups appreciate one another.
• The magnitude of the changes produced by programs of any design appears to be relatively small, with little evidence that the changes are (or aren’t) long-lasting. Few researchers or providers track participants in these programs over a sustained period, even though the explicit goal of this work is long-term change.

Pew’s interviews with representatives of provider organizations found that some seek to evaluate their efforts by soliciting feedback from participants, usually through surveys distributed at the close of the program. But providers rarely follow up. Leaders invest their limited time and resources in doing the work itself rather than in long-term analysis, which they say can be difficult, expensive, and potentially disheartening. In any event, most are convinced, based on what they see and hear, that their efforts are making a real difference.

This research informed a conference that Pew hosted in Philadelphia in April 2024. At the convening, 25 leaders from organizations throughout the country that provide grants for efforts to promote religious pluralism gathered to discuss Pew’s research, its implications for their efforts, and how the work they fund can have more impact.

At the conference, representatives of funding organizations indicated that they see little value in asking providers to subject their programs to peer-reviewed academic research. In the funders’ view, academics seem more interested in advancing questions involving sociological and psychological theory than in practical applications.

Instead, funder representatives said at the conference that they are largely content with providers conducting internal assessments of their own programs. But funders want those assessments to become more substantive, with the inclusion of meaningful data to support provider narratives. As one funder put it, the goal is to find “the sweet spot” between pure anecdote and academic rigor that produces sufficient insight into a program’s usefulness.

Some program leaders reported in Pew’s interviews that they base their programs on explicit theories of change.

But few programs are rooted in research-based findings. Rather, most stem from a mix of intuition and opportunity. Many were inspired by the personal experiences of charismatic and concerned founders. Others relied on a sense among organizers about various elements of religious discord and how to address them. And still other programs were shaped by the imperatives and limitations of the larger institutions in which they operate.

Although providers are understandably attached to their own approaches, several organizational leaders said in Pew’s interviews that they feel they are operating in the dark to one degree or another. In the context of a post-Oct. 7 world and a highly polarized American public, some leaders feel exhausted and overwhelmed—at a time when their work feels more vital than ever. In that context, they say it’s essential not to waste effort and resources.

Providers told Pew they would welcome research that offers guidance about which approaches are most effective and, equally as important, which can be brought to scale. The leader of one regional organization said, “We all want to put our money where it has the most impact.”

What organizations that promote religious understanding do

Within the field of countering religious bias and promoting pluralism, providers pursue different approaches and target different audiences. The approaches generally fall into four categories:

• Education—teaching individuals about different religious traditions, practices, and beliefs in a way that promotes understanding.
• Contact—exposure to individuals who belong to a religion different from one’s own, either face-to-face or indirectly.
• Skills training—an intervention in which participants are taught ways to promote positive interactions with members of another faith, such as empathy training or learning to counter misconceptions.
• Combined approaches—using more than one approach, such as combining contact with skills training.

Of the 21 U.S. provider organizations that completed the Pew survey, 16 reported conducting classroom education or skills training. Examples include the Faith Over Fear training offered by the Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign, designed to help members of Muslim and non-Muslim faith communities speak out effectively against Islamophobia. Seventeen organizations develop educational materials, including the case studies made available to educators through Harvard University’s Pluralism Project.

Beyond that, 16 provider organizations engage in thought leadership by publishing op-eds, producing short films, participating in social media campaigns, and conducting and publishing research on religious discrimination and bias incidents. One example is the Anti-Defamation League, which focuses much of its public-facing work on antisemitism.

And nearly all the groups (18 of 21) create shared experiences and activities—such as meals, trips, retreats, and service projects—for members of different religious groups. Much of Interfaith Philadelphia’s work, for example, falls into this category.

In the Pew survey, organizations reported a wide range of audiences for their work. Given a list of intended audiences, 19 of the 21 chose faith and religious leaders; 14 selected the general adult population; 13 chose teachers and administrators at educational institutions, K-12 students, and college students; 12 identified journalists and the media; and 11 named policymakers.²

Often, however, provider organizations target one specific group. For instance, the Multi-Faith Neighbors Network, whose members include evangelical Christian pastors, focuses exclusively on building relationships among clerical leaders of different faiths, with the expectation that influencing faith leaders will affect their congregations as well.³

Interfaith America, by contrast, has focused most of its work historically on college campuses and other nonreligious settings, building networks and providing learning tools, curricula, and training. It has recently expanded its work to include health care institutions, civic organizations, and corporate leaders.

Regardless of what they do, most of the providers interviewed for this research do not use the term “religious tolerance”—a phrase used by Pew researchers at the beginning of this project. Providers consider that language to be outdated, passive, and unsuited to the moment. Instead, the organizations’ leaders talk about understanding and engagement. The goal, they say, must be active pluralism, which views religious minorities not as groups that must be accepted, however grudgingly, but as important participants in a diverse society.

Leaders of funding organizations who attended Pew’s April conference said they, too, are uncomfortable with “religious tolerance” as an umbrella term for the work but were uncertain about a fitting replacement. This uncertainty appears to reflect the variety of approaches that providers take as well as a lack of consensus about goals.

Why provider organizations do what they do

To understand the approaches taken by various groups in the field of promoting religious pluralism, it helps to know their origins as well as the institutional settings in which programs were developed. None were motivated at the outset by academic studies concluding that a chosen approach had proved to be effective.

Some groups were created in response to specific threats against specific religious groups at particular moments. The Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign, for instance, was created in 2010 in response to the vitriol against Muslims that accompanied the controversy over the so-called Ground Zero mosque in New York City.

Other organizations are rooted in the beliefs or experiences of founding individuals who felt compelled to pursue a mission.⁴ The Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, which creates and supports groups of Muslim and Jewish women throughout the United States, stems from co-founder Sheryl Olitzky’s 2010 trip to Holocaust-era concentration camps in Poland.⁵

The Multi-Faith Neighbors Network, which aspires to build and nurture working relationships among Muslim, Jewish, and evangelical Christian clerics, began a decade ago at a religious retreat in Kathmandu, Nepal. There, Dr. Bob Roberts Jr., a pastor from the Dallas area, and Imam Mohamed Magid, from Northern Virginia, started a conversation that led to a friendship and a commitment to work with their colleagues back home.⁶

Interfaith America is the post-9/11 creation of Eboo Patel. In his 20s at the time of the attacks, Patel attended interfaith events and found them to be dominated by older people and not sufficiently focused on action. So, he founded an organization of his own and has run it ever since.⁷

For another group of providers, the scope of their work is largely defined by the nature and interests of the larger institutions of which they are a part.

There’s a clear logic behind Hillel International’s creation of the Hillel Campus Climate Initiative, which works with students and administrators to develop and implement action plans to help make Jewish students feel more welcome at colleges and universities: Hillel International’s primary role is to support on-campus organizations for Jewish students. The Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program takes a top-down approach, dealing exclusively with leaders—matching what the institute does on multiple fronts.

Of course, funding also dictates what happens. In several cases, providers told Pew researchers that they had initiated certain programs because they secured a grant allowing them to do so. In other cases, providers said, they terminated programs not necessarily because they were ineffective but because grant funding ran out and was not renewed.

Funders are aware of how grantmaking policies can influence providers in ways that are not always positive. They want to support programs that are, as one funder put it at Pew’s April conference, “habit forming”—that produce long-term changes in attitudes and/or behavior. But that sort of result, hard to achieve under the best of circumstances, becomes more elusive when providers have little incentive to look beyond the next grantmaking cycle.

The question of scale

Many providers consider the cohort approach, which relies on extensive contact among groups of individuals over time, to be the gold standard for bridging religious divides. Social scientists categorize these efforts as “contact programs.” The concept is based on the seminal 1954 book by American psychologist Gordon W. Allport, who found that, under certain circumstances, direct contact with someone affiliated with a different religion or political party, or who belongs to a different racial or ethnic group, can reduce prejudice and intergroup anxiety.⁸

Providers speak glowingly about the benefits of creating, nurturing, and maintaining such cohorts, thereby producing an environment in which personal relationships can be forged and trust established. In interviews with Pew researchers, providers said in-person encounters are essential to contact programs’ success. They expressed such views regardless of whether they were working with clerical leaders, concerned adults, college students, or young people. As one provider put it, “There is no substitute for the cohort immersion experience.”

In addition, as Pew’s literature review indicates, research suggests that contact programs can change attitudes among non-cohort members as well, once they know that a friend or associate has developed a friendship with someone from another religion.

The limitation, of course, is that the cohort approach is time-consuming, expensive in terms of money and staff time, and, by its very nature, virtually impossible to bring to scale.

The Multi-Faith Neighbors Network, for instance, brings together cohorts of clergy members from different faiths for intense three-day in-person retreats, which are designed to foster trusting relationships. Cohorts are organized by geography to facilitate ongoing face-to-face encounters and neighborhood-based service projects. It takes an enormous amount of time and effort to get each cohort up and running—and a real commitment from participating clerics to keep the cohorts going.

Although providers of programs that promote religious pluralism tout the value of direct contact, some researchers question whether the painstaking effort of assembling in-person cohorts is always necessary. Several of the papers reviewed for this project highlight the benefits of digital contact, particularly for young people, using interactive videos, podcasts, and other forms of online entertainment as teaching tools.

Some provider organizations do work virtually, often by necessity. In the Aspen Institute’s Religion & Society Program, which has a national scope, many meetings are virtual, although organizers look for opportunities to bring participants together for field trips and other events.

At Pew’s conference for funders, several participants said that available research about contact programs’ value was strong enough to give donors and providers confidence that the programs are effective when done right. That conclusion would suggest that future research should focus more on practical matters, such as how best to implement contact approaches in various situations and to avoid initiatives that could be counterproductive.

But there are other concerns about how to make the best use of limited resources. In provider interviews and at the funders’ conference, participants expressed widespread concern that the demand for efforts to bridge religious divides far exceeds organizations’ ability to provide services—and that increased funding alone is not the answer. Skills training is a key element of the services provided by many organizations that work to promote religious pluralism. One idea to reduce costs and increase capacity—suggested by Interfaith Philadelphia—is to teach credentialed individuals who aren’t paid staff to become experts capable of conducting skills training sessions.

How provider organizations and funders determine what’s working

Defining and measuring success is not a core strength of most programs.

One 30-year veteran in the field, reflecting on the lack of evaluation, said some practitioners have been reluctant to quantify their results, adding, “Maybe it’s just that we don’t understand evaluation or that we don’t care enough about it.”

In the Pew survey of 21 providers, 14 said they collect information on their programs to evaluate effectiveness. Often, that consists of the kind of questionnaires that event organizers routinely distribute at the close of a conference or seminar, asking whether the event was useful, what participants liked and disliked, whether it changed their attitudes, and whether they would recommend it to friends and colleagues.

From those questionnaires, program organizers produce a set of statistics, usually showing that high percentages of participants found value in a program. In addition, there are some glowing testimonials. “At least for me,” the leader of one organization said in an interview, “what’s most compelling are the ways in which people describe their stories of change.”

Organizations also measure success by tabulating the number of events staged, educational materials shared, individuals participating, and mentions on social media.

Few providers do more than that, for several reasons. First, they trust their gut; program leaders say they see and sense what’s working. Second, they are unable or unwilling to invest their limited funds in evaluation. A representative of one smaller organization told Pew researchers that “serious evaluation” would take place only in “a dream world.”

Funders, on the other hand, want serious evaluations—within limits. Recognizing that outside evaluators can be seen as threatening to a provider’s operations, many donors say they are satisfied when the providers themselves, most of whom they trust, perform evaluations internally. Leaders of funding organizations take this stance even though they know through experience that providers sometimes get too close to their own programs to ask the right questions and find actionable answers.

Funders understand that to generate more substantive evaluations, they must make such evaluations—and the money to pay for them—part of their grants to providers, something that’s not often done. Unless they do provide financial support, requiring more robust evaluations would essentially be an unfunded mandate. Funders say they want to avoid that outcome so as not to create an unnecessary burden. They also don’t want to impose their own cultural values on providers.

To be sure, some providers have launched more significant evaluation efforts or are planning to do so.

Interfaith America, for example, partnered with two researchers, Dr. Alyssa Rockenbach (North Carolina State University) and Dr. Matt Mayhew (Ohio State University), to conduct the Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Study (IDEALS), a five-year examination of religious diversity in higher education. The study ran from 2015 to 2019 and surveyed more than 20,000 students on 122 campuses regarding religious diversity and acceptance over the duration of their college experience. It also examined best practices for interfaith learning and development.⁹

The Hillel Campus Climate Initiative has worked with the University of Chicago’s NORC, previously known as the National Opinion Research Center, to conduct “climate reviews” of Hillel’s efforts. NORC has conducted stakeholder surveys and focus groups and has examined campus policies, procedures, and infrastructure.¹⁰ But much more can be done.

“In our space, there really isn’t so much of an emphasis on measuring success or impact,” the leader of one national program said in an interview with Pew researchers. “It’s very much: We reached x number of people and delivered x, y, and z in terms of materials and events, and so we assume that we accomplished something. … [But] did what you do make the change that you say it did? Can we actually assume that knowing about other people and their religions reduces their bias? There isn’t really any accountability.”

What the research says about what works

For the most part, the literature about programs designed to foster the growth of religious pluralism and understanding supports providers’ and funders’ views about the benefits of sustained contact among individuals—but not always. And the literature has a number of limitations, including the fact that little of it looks at U.S.-based programs.

One study, for example, compared two recreational adult soccer teams in Iraq—one a mixed team of Muslims and Christians, the other only Christians. Researchers found that players on the mixed team were more likely to support one another on the field but not necessarily off the field.¹¹ Another study, which looked at regions of the Philippines and Indonesia that were comparable in religious diversity, found that interactions among Christian and Muslim university students that resulted in friendships reduced negative attitudes but that limited, casual contact had the opposite effect.¹²

There is also evidence that indirect contact between members of different faiths—sometimes achieved through watching videos and engaging with specially designed games and exercises—can have a positive impact, especially on young people. A well-regarded study that looked mostly at American university students found that watching a Canadian situation comedy called “Little Mosque on the Prairie” improved the students’ attitudes toward Muslims.¹³

Approaches that rely on electronic contact could be particularly useful in the U.S., given its size, its religious diversity, and the invisibility of many smaller religious groups in much of the country.

Programs that educate young people about the beliefs and practices of various religions seem relatively effective in changing attitudes.¹⁴ Consider a program piloted in Modesto, California, in partnership with the First Amendment Center, that taught high school students about world religions. It produced marked improvement in student attitudes toward supporting other people’s right to practice their religions and respecting and understanding diverse traditions.¹⁵ Even so, leaders from several of the provider organizations whom Pew interviewed said their experience has caused them to be skeptical about the value of simply teaching the basics of various religions, an approach they referred to as “Islam 101” or “Judaism 101.”

Some of the most robust effects seem to come from efforts that combine approaches, such as contact; education; and skills-building, where the skills include empathy, leadership, and openness. Not surprisingly, intervention programs that involve multiple interactions over time tend to be more effective than one-time meetings. On the other hand, there is little evidence to suggest that efforts to improve the overall climate of religious acceptance at a college or university—a hot topic, given the much-publicized campus tensions that surfaced in 2023 and 2024 (and the focus of several of the largest U.S. organizations doing religious pluralism work)—are particularly effective.

Studies indicate that the positive effects of most programs, regardless of the setting, tend to be small in magnitude and relatively short-lived, although the latter conclusion is at least partially the result of the general failure or inability of research efforts to monitor change over long periods.

The existing literature offers no real sense of why various approaches produce positive outcomes. To be sure, finding causality in this sort of work is difficult and not of great interest to providers, who are more concerned with practical ways to make programs better than with theories of cause and effect.

What’s missing in the literature and what’s needed

For any U.S. organization seeking guidance on effectively targeting religious bias, trying to glean lessons from the existing literature can be frustrating. Nearly 80% of the 61 studies reviewed for this report focused on programs that operate outside the United States. Of those studies, nearly 40% focused on Israel and the conflict in the Middle East. In addition, most participants in the programs studied were young people in school settings.

Furthermore, the U.S.-based programs covered in the literature do not reflect the nation’s religious diversity. Published studies of U.S. programs primarily examine how learning about Judaism and Jewish history affects attitudes toward Jews, as well as the impact of campus climates on the perceived inclusion of religious minorities there. There are no reports about any organized efforts aimed at influencing members of the majority religious group, Christianity, to show greater religious understanding of minority faiths.

Other deficiencies in the published literature reflect the limitations of the studies themselves. For instance, few studies document truly negative outcomes, which may be the result of “publication bias”—the sense that providers, scholars, and academic journals alike are disinclined to study or highlight programs deemed to be unsuccessful. The field could benefit from an examination of the tacit and explicit knowledge generated by programs that failed. Learning what doesn’t work helps donors and providers alike allocate more resources to programs that are more likely to produce positive results.

To address such shortcomings, providers might design and build programs specifically to facilitate meaningful assessment.

• In any program, it’s important to compile extensive data about participants before starting an intervention. It’s hard to judge how much change occurs as a result of a program without knowing where the participants started. That means not just gathering baseline data on participants’ attitudes but also probing the depth and nature of their religious faith or lack thereof, as well as factors such as exposure to political or cultural movements that might influence their views.
• If a program’s goal is to promote increased understanding and acceptance based on religion, providers should try to isolate that element as much as possible. That can be difficult. In the tensions surrounding the Middle East, for instance, the strains between Islam and Judaism are only part of the issue. No matter the setting, hostile attitudes among members of different faith traditions can involve religious beliefs, experiences, histories, practices, texts, objects, and identities.
• Providers should be as clear as possible about a program’s goal. Is it to affect viewpoints or behavior, and how so? Is the aim to promote religious pluralism, create more positive campus climates for diverse faith traditions, reduce antisemitism, challenge negative stereotypes toward Muslims, or something else? It’s important to be as specific as possible at the outset about what success might look like—with the understanding that attitudes are much easier to track and measure than behavior. (Indeed, no published study of a U.S.-based program reviewed for this report measured behavioral change.)
• Once providers have established a program’s desired outcomes, they should ask themselves whether the program is designed to produce those outcomes—and, if not, adjust accordingly.
• Finally, program providers should put in place measures to determine whether the desired outcomes have been achieved in the short term, then stay in touch with participants for a longer period to see whether and to what degree the impacts last. Longitudinal studies are vital. After all, everyone wants to promote real change that endures for years.

Conclusion

At Pew’s April 2024 convening, funders said they viewed some of the research findings—from the literature review, the survey of providers, and the follow-up interviews with those providers—as more important than others. They concurred that gathering more baseline information about program participants and tracking them over time are essential to evaluating a program’s effectiveness. Funders were less concerned with establishing a precise delineation of goals, on the grounds that any progress in enhancing religious literacy and establishing warmer feelings among members of different faith traditions is worth the effort.

As noted earlier, many funders would like to see research shift toward a focus on implementation to probe and test approaches more thoroughly, perhaps by looking at how they work with different audiences and in different situations. If one variation of the contact method has shown promise in schools, for instance, see what happens when it is implemented at a workplace or among religious congregations. Program providers also said in Pew’s interviews that they would be happy to get evidence-based practical guidance about how to make their programs as effective as possible. In addition, some funders expressed interest in finding ways to enhance curiosity about other religions so that learning about them becomes a positive and more routine way to bridge differences.

Funders would also like to see an effort to map all the providers and programs working in the field of religious pluralism—who they are, what they are doing, and what’s known about the effectiveness of their efforts. For that to happen, providers would have to commit to sharing the results of assessments and evaluations of their programs, whether done in-house or by outside researchers. That is essential if those in the field are to benefit from the experiences of their counterparts, both positive and negative.

Talking and writing about efforts that fall short of creators’ hopes is as important as trumpeting tales of success— if not more so. Failing to discuss shortcomings increases the chances that other providers will invest time, energy, and money in repeating mistakes.

Progress along all these lines is essential if this important work is to move closer to reaching its potential.

Endnotes

1. “Views on Discrimination in Our Society,” Becka A. Alper, Laura Silver, and Besheer Mohamed, Pew Research Center, April 2, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/2024/04/02/views-on-discrimination-in-our-society.
2. For more on the survey, including the questions, the results, and the organizations surveyed, see the methodology.
3. Unless otherwise noted, these and other statements about specific groups come from interviews conducted with representatives of those organizations. For more information about the interviews, including the subjects covered, see the methodology.
4. “Vision, Mission, Why We Exist: Understanding the Problem,” Shoulder to Shoulder Campaign, https://www.shouldertoshouldercampaign.org/vision.
5. “About Us,” Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom, https://sosspeace.org/about-us.
6. “About Multi-Faith Neighbors Network: Building Resilient Communities,” Multi-Faith Neighbors Network, https://www.mfnn.org/about.
7. “Mission & Vision,” Interfaith America, https://www.interfaithamerica.org/mission-vision.
8. Gordon Allport, The Nature of Prejudice (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 1954).
9. “Ideals,” Interfaith America, https://www.interfaithamerica.org/research/ideals.
10. “Hillel International Campus Climate Review,” NORC at the University of Chicago, https://www.norc.org/research/projects/hillel-international-campus-climate-review.html.
11. Salma Mousa, “Building Social Cohesion Between Christians and Muslims Through Soccer in Post-ISIS Iraq,” Science 369, no. 6505 (2020): 866-70, https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abb3153.
12. Agnieszka Kanas, Peer Scheepers, and Carl Sterkens, “Interreligious Contact and Out-Group Trust: Findings From Conflict and Non-Conflict Regions in Indonesia and the Philippines,” in Religion, Migration, and Conflict, eds. Carl Sterkens and Paul Vermeer (Münster, Germany: LIT Verlag, 2015), 121.
13. Joy Benatov, Rony Berger, and Carmit T. Tadmore, “Gaming for Peace: Virtual Contact Through Cooperative Video Gaming Increases Children’s Intergroup Tolerance in the Context of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 92 (2021): 104065, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2020.104065.
14. Sohad Murrar and Markus Brauer, “Entertainment-Education Effectively Reduces Prejudice,” Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 21, no. 7 (2018): 1053-77, https://doi.org/10.1177/1368430216682350.
15. Emile Lester and Patrick Soren Roberts, “Learning About World Religions in Public Schools: The Impact on Student Attitudes and Community Acceptance in Modesto, Calif.,” First Amendment Center, 2006, https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/publications/learning_about_world_religions_in_public_schools_the_impact_on_student_attitudes_and_community_acceptance_in_modesto_calif.