By Todd Ferguson
This May, the Boniuk Institute released the Houston Religious Leadership Project , which examined Houston’s religious diversity. Researchers from the Institute interviewed religious leaders from across the city to understand how faith communities are working with each other in one of America’s most diverse cities.
One of the major findings was that while religious diversity is often viewed as an asset for the city, religious leaders struggle to build bridges with other religious groups. This creates a silo effect, where we live and work within a pluralistic environment, but we are not making the connections with others that are necessary for a healthy democracy. Why are religious leaders struggling to connect with others outside their faith? The leaders we spoke to gave two major reasons: time and theology.
First, the leaders said they did not have enough time to build bridges with others outside their faith. There was simply too much work to do internally within their own congregation. One Catholic priest told the Boniuk Institute researchers, “To be honest, I haven’t [worked with other faiths]. But given the size of this parish and the complexity of this parish, I really have not had an opportunity. I haven’t had time.” Religious leaders are strained. They are already pulled in so many directions within their own congregations that there is little left over to connect with others.
The second major reason leaders do not connect with others outside their faith is theological. It is difficult, and sometimes uncomfortable, to connect with others who hold vastly different theological convictions. One Jewish rabbi told the researchers, “Sometimes I’m somewhat selective at times if someone takes certain views that I find anathema. I can’t necessarily work with them. And I don’t want to associate with people that I think cross a line.”
Other leaders struggle to work with different faiths because they know that the other faiths want to convert them. This was particularly relevant to the South Asian religious leaders the researchers spoke with. Other research backs up the sentiment that these religious leaders are expressing. In 2023, sociologists from Duke University conducted the National Survey of Religious Leaders. They asked the leaders if they agreed or disagreed with the statement, “It is important for me to try to persuade people in other religions to accept my religion instead of their own.” Figure 1 shows the results. Significant groups of White Conservative Protestants (48%) and Black Protestants (23%) completely agreed that they should be working towards converting others, while non-Christians (72%) and White Liberal/Moderate Protestants (30%) completely disagreed with the idea.
So how do we overcome these time and theological barriers to building bridges with other faiths? Solutions that ask religious leaders to add one more thing to their already-busy schedules will not work, and neither will asking them to violate deeply-held theological beliefs. As John Inazu, the 2026 Boniuk Institute Senior Scholar, recently told me on our podcast, we must be able to work with others while not violating our own theological convictions. We can both disagree with each other and work with each other. That is how democracy works.
So instead of adding more to the “plate” or asking leaders to agree when they actually disagree, I suggest working with different faiths to solve problems. Religious congregations and their partners are already doing amazing work to address issues like homelessness, poverty, hunger, and disaster relief. Congregations and leaders can use this already-established work to build bridges with other faiths. For instance, in Houston we have organizations like IM Houston, Memorial Assistance Ministries, the Houston Food Bank, and Habitat for Humanity that are all tackling major social issues. Religious leaders do not have to water down their own theological convictions to work with these groups, and their congregations also may already have ongoing relationships with them. We can lean into these groups to help build the bridges that make our religiously diverse community a force for good and not just a community of isolated congregations.