Civic Life
Faith-Specific Convenings bring together leaders within individual faith traditions to explore their community’s understanding of religious liberty and pluralism and its contributions to American civic life. Each convening culminates in a public event and shareable storytelling that highlights the diversity, complexity, and democratic commitments of that tradition.
As we approach America’s 250th anniversary, most Americans believe that religious diversity is a foundational American strength. More in Common found that 81% of Americans agree with the statement that the “United States should be a place where people of all religious beliefs and no religious beliefs feel they belong.” (Promising Revelations: Undoing the False Impressions of America’s Faithful) While most Americans support religious liberty, increased polarization and the prevalence of “us-versus-them” narratives have left many people feeling threatened, judged and misrepresented in living their faith. We need to create an interfaith America, where we see our strong commitments to pluralism and religious liberty reflected.
Interfaith America believes pluralism is a way to live out the legal protections of religious liberty. Pluralism is the positive engagement of diversity rather than the sheer fact of diversity alone. Pluralism asks that individuals recognize and validate differences within a community in a way that facilitates not only the civil coexistence of diverse peoples, cultures, and worldviews, but also their cooperation. To achieve this vision, More in Common’s report recommends telling stories that inspire respect for people’s differences and center our common humanity. Interfaith America is excited to provide an opportunity for individuals of faith to “cast a larger vision for an America in which everyone can belong.”
Interfaith America’s Faith-Specific Convenings project will help faith-based institutions and leaders understand their own community’s perspectives and roles in building pluralism and protecting religious liberty and develop content and resources that highlight how their community contributes to strengthening American religious and civic life. These intrafaith conversations will help tell the stories of 10 different communities and faith and conscience. Each convening, held in partnership with a civic, educational, or social institution important to the community, will include two elements:
A private facilitated conversation for 12-15 civic leaders, clergy, and experts from a shared religious identity looking at how that the diverse opinions within that tradition understand religious liberty, their contributions to American civic and religious life, and the current challenges their community faces with respect to religious liberty.
A public event focusing on that faith’s distinctive understanding of and connection to religious liberty as an American ideal.
Interfaith America will record and produce shareable videos about each convening. The videos will communicate each community’s complexities, diversity, and contributions to American democracy and be a tool for community members to discuss their faith and participation in American pluralism.
In 2026, IA will hold roundtable discussions with the Black Churches, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Sikh communities.
“As people of faith tell their own stories… important truths emerge both about the role that politics is playing in religious communities, and the unifying potential of spiritual belief.”
— Promising Revelations: Undoing the False Impressions of America’s Faithful, More in Common
Please contact us with any questions.
Jake Shapiro
Program Manager, Democracy Initiatives
Interfaith America
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