Rice University’s Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance hosted a celebration at Cohen House Aug. 28 to launch the new Religion and Public Life Center (RPLC). The center’s goal is to use research on religion to build common ground for the common good.
The center will tackle this goal by producing cutting-edge scholarship on religion and public life that serves the common good in a time of rising polarization and deepening inequalities, said Rachel Schneider, director of the RPLC, associate director of academic programs at the Boniuk Institute and assistant research professor of religion.
“In a time of rising polarization and deepening insecurities, it has never been more urgent to understand the role of religion in public life,” Schneider said. “Historically and today there has been much debate about the role of religion and how it promotes — and impedes — the common good. Religion is often seen as a contributor to conflict and inequality, but we know that religion also offers important sources of community, identity, meaning and morality that bring people together around visions of a better world. We also know that far too often discussions of religion’s social, political and public role lack nuanced understanding of religious people, communities and traditions. Instead, conversations remain locked in stereotypes and generalizations.”
The RPLC aims to investigate how religion shapes and is shaped by the world and how religion motivates human action. As a hub for multidisciplinary research, training and public engagement, the RPLC aims to better understand religion’s impact in contemporary life and equip communities to be able to confront common challenges in the pluralistic, interconnected world.
“Religion rarely receives the same academic attention that other social and cultural forces receive, and this only adds to the myopia,” Schneider said. “We need focused and expansive research agendas on religion that add value to public discourse and uphold the highest values of the university, values of intellectual integrity, research excellence, critical inquiry and free exchange. The Boniuk Institute’s RPLC along with collaborators and like-minded scholars across Rice, a private research university that is located in one of the most culturally diverse and religiously rich cities in the nation, is poised to deliver just that.”
The RPLC builds on 14 years of successful work of the Religion and Public Life Program, which began in 2010 under founding director and Rice sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund. Since 2010, the program accomplished 15 major research initiatives, raised over $12 million in grant funding, hosted 119 public events, trained 123 scholars and produced 116 publications, including 15 books. Schneider directed the Religion and Public Life Program since 2022 and shared with the audience that the program hit all of the required benchmarks needed to expand into a center.
The RPLC will continue to focus on religion and public life broadly, but with a special emphasis on areas such as religion, gender and inequality; congregations and religion in institutions; race, racism and religion; and religion, civic capacity, politics and social change.
“By advancing the study of religion in public life and increasing public understanding of religion, our efforts will aid everyday people to work across differences and build a more just and equitable world,” Schneider said.
Visit the Boniuk Institute and RLPC websites to see the programming that runs throughout the year, including Religious and Civic Leader Gatherings, weekly scholars meetings and a new season of the podcast Religion Unmuted hosted by Schneider, which explores how religion is lived globally.