Below we've collected some of the programs, projects, and organizations that have been created to enhance the public understanding of religion and how it impacts our communities and the world.
PRRI
The Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to conducting independent research and driving conversations at the intersection of religion, culture, and politics.
APRIL
The Association for Public Religion and Intellectual Life is a global network of leaders, scholars, and social change agents. Through the journal CrossCurrents, the online magazine The Commons, and summer colloquia, APRIL explores religious life, engage in intellectual inquiry, and lead ethical action in the world today.
Listening to the Buddhists in our Backyard
Digital documentation of public engagement project with many resources. Through this interdisciplinary, listening-first approach, Listening to the Buddhists in Our Backyard (L2BB) reimagines how we can learn about Buddhism within and beyond the classroom. By centering local Buddhist communities—especially those founded by the monastics and laypeople of Asian heritage who make up the majority of American Buddhists—we encounter rich sites of connection and meaning-making
Living with Gandhi Archive
The Living with Gandhi Archive is an accessible site (located at Bucknell University) for the study and exploration of Gandhi's residential experiments with utopia. Here you can read about the four intentional communities that Gandhi founded in South Africa and India; view photographs of each of these four sites from Gandhi’s time as well as the present; learn about many of Gandhi’s coresidents; and explore additional resources to learn about daily life at these communities and the collective quest for utopia.
Dialogue Institute
The Dialogue Institute engages religious, civic, and academic leaders in practicing the skills of respectful dialogue and critical thinking, building and sustaining transformative relationships across lines of religion and culture. It provides resources and creates networks for intra- and interreligious scholarship and action that value difference and foster human dignity.
Sacred Writes
Sacred Writes provides support, resources, and networks for scholars of religion committed to translating their research for a broader audience.
Boniuk Institute
The Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance, at Rice University, aims to understand the conditions which lead to religious pluralism, tolerance, conflict, and violence, and then help people apply its findings in their lives and communities.
Center for Engaged Pluralism
The Center for Engaged Pluralism is dedicated to the civic engagement of religiously diverse voices and promoting interfaith leadership in and for the public square and the professions grounded in pluralism as an American value.