The Pluralism Project at Harvard University

Sarita Cargas

Oxford University
Attitudes Towards Interfaith Survey

In partnership with Dr. Leslie Francis and Dr. Mandy Robbins of the Welsh Nat'l Centre for Religious Education I have designed an "Attitudes Towards Interfaith" questionnaire to be administered at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Barcelona July 2004. Five thousand people are expected to attend this event. (About 25 percent will be Americans.) Each participant will be given a questionnaire with their registration. The questionnaire has three major foci and several minor ones. We ask people about their view of the nature of religious truth to determine if people believe God(s)/Truth is revealed in many religions or one. We ask people if they are practicing interfaith and if so, what this means. (For example, do people feel they can belong to more than one religious tradition or do they belong to one yet dialogue with others?) We also investigate the relationship of personality to religious committment. Further, we will be able to correlate an individual's religious upbringing with their adult religious practices in order to find out if some religions are more amenable to adaptation than others. We also ask questions about the relationship of science and religion in people's belief systems. Our overall objective is to gain a greater understanding of how the reality of today's pluralism affects the "ordinary" believer.

Dr. Keith Ward is the faculty sponsor for this research.