TruthBook Religious News Blog

A recent national survey of U.S. faith communities by Hartford Seminary found that interfaith activity among faith communities has more than tripled since 2000.

The survey, sponsored by the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership, found that slightly more than 2 in 10 congregations (22.3 percent) reported participating in an interfaith worship service in the past year. Nearly 4 in 10congregations (37.5 percent) reported joining in interfaith community service activities.

Statistics come from a survey released by Faith Communities Today 2005 (FACT2005) of 884 randomly sampled congregations of all faith traditions in the United States. The survey updates results from a survey taken in 2000 (FACT2000), before the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

FACT2000 surveyed 14,301 randomly sampled congregations and found that only 7 percent of congregations reported participating in interfaith worship in the previous 12 months, while only 8 percent reported joining in interfaith community service activities.

David A. Roozen, Director of the Cooperative Congregational Studies Partnership and Professor of Religion and Society at Hartford Seminary, said that “immediately after September 11 there was a surge of interfaith activity, but by the following year many social commentators were talking about a return to the general interfaith indifference of pre-2001. There was no hard data to support or refute such claims. Now we know, four years later. The increased attention being given by communities of faith to interfaith engagements continues to be dramatic.”

Roozen continued, “The Sept. 11 upturn in interfaith awareness has been accompanied by a fundamental change in the United States’ perception of the American religious mosaic. Our public consciousness has had to acknowledge in the most powerful way in our history that the religious liberty-in-diversity that Americans cherish has moved from ecumenical Christian to interfaith, and that this American, interfaith consciousness will forevermore include Islam.”

The FACT2005 survey also shows that interfaith worship is significantly higher for mainline Protestant congregations (30 percent) than for other Protestant sects (17 percent), and slightly higher among mainline Protestants than for their Catholic and Orthodox counterparts (28 percent). [“Other Protestant” includes both evangelical and historically black Protestant groups.]

But interfaith worship is highest among congregations in faith traditions other than Christian (40 percent). The latter makes sense, according to Roozen, “because as minority faith traditions in the U.S. context, they arguably have most to gain from increased understanding and tolerance; and also because of demographics, they tend to be concentrated in cosmopolitan areas where there are larger numbers of Christian congregations seeking to partner with relatively small numbers of other than Christian communities.”

FACT/CCSP’s goal is to offer research-based resources for congregational development that are useful across faith traditions and to inform the public about the contributions of congregations to American society and about the changes affecting and emanating from local congregations.

FACT2000 and FACT2005 are the first two of an ongoing series of national surveys designed to track changes in U.S. congregations. Researchers, consultants and program staff from a broadly ecumenical and interfaith association of thirty-three religious groups and organizations are involved in the partnership.

Jennifer Riley
jennifer@christianpost.com