Dimensions of Diversity: Toward a More Complex Conceptualization

Abstract

The article assesses the complexity of religious diversity through a presentation of results from the Religion and Diversity Project, a seven-year project conducted between 2010 and 2017 and centred at the University of Ottawa, Canada. Analyzing five dimensions of diversity—the religions, lived, strength, institutional and forms dimensions—it demonstrates how results from the project support the thesis that religious diversity itself is changing in all these regards, becoming more complex, and relating in complex intersectionality with other categories of diversity such as sex and gender. The article concludes by pointing to the need to expand research into religious diversity to also include the growing nonreligious diversity in Canadian and other societies.

Worldview complexity: The challenge of intersecting diversities for conceptualising diversity

“…Just as earlier research exploded the notion of modernisation being a singular, uniform, path, resulting in the idea of multiple modernisations, Martin (2016) was always aware that there were multiple secularities. The Religious Diversity Project again made this abundantly clear and is now being further interrogated by Beaman's current project on Nonreligion in a Complex Future (NCF) (Beyer and Beaman, 2019). The problem with binaries continues and is further complexified by intersections of diversities.…”

“…Woodhead, 2013). Recent research into religious diversity reveals that internal diversity among religious groups typically exceeds the differences between groups (Beyer and Beaman, 2019; Bouma et al, 2021; Singleton et al, 2018, 2019). It is tempting to describe a global clash emerging between cosmopolitans, who accept and celebrate this diversity, and anti-cosmopolitans who resist it (Halafoff et al, 2019).…”

“…In this study too, many kinds of religious diversity were discovered; diversities of religious organisation, religious identity profiles, religious history, religious policies, religious education, religion, and sexuality, to say nothing of diversities of context, language, custom, and forms of governance. That this welter of diversities was not reduced to some neat overarching integrative theoretical formulation is testimony not to failure, but rather to being faithful to the ‘messy reality’ of the diverse realities encountered (Beyer and Beaman, 2019). Wilkins-Laflamme (2017) reports a similar messy reality in a study of religious, spiritual, secular ‘landscapes’ of the Pacific Northwest and Quebec.…”

“…The encounters with religious diversity in surveys, interviews, and focus groups conducted for these projects left us desiring to contribute to ongoing discourses while being increasingly unsatisfied by the available conceptual frameworks. While much of the research has dealt with differences in the distribution of religious identities, there are many other varying facets of religion that further complexify the landscape – types of organisation, theological systems, ethical approaches, geographical distribution, and a host more (Beckford, 2003; Beyer and Beaman, 2019). New, non-binary concepts of difference are called for but continue to be lacking.…”

Understanding the impact of confessional diversity in the Lebanese public sector. Case study: The Lebanese Ministry of Finance

“…Religious discrimination is expanding faster than other types of discrimination as to gender or race (Beyer & Beaman, 2019). A limited number of publications are aware of confessional diversity and/or religious discrimination within organizations.…”