Study: Interfaith Prayer Can Strengthen Unity, Diversity In Faith-Based Organizations

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“The prayer practices we observed appear to play a crucial role in binding participants together across significant racial and socioeconomic differences.”

Interfaith prayer at Claremont United Church of Christ by Imam Shamshad of
of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community - September  2010

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch | US Desk
Source/Credit: The Huffington Post
By Antonia Blumberg | July 6, 2013

Prayer is a powerful practice, as many who do it regularly can attest to. But in addition to being a powerful personal practice, prayer can play a role in strengthening even the most diverse communities, according to a new study led by a University of Connecticut sociologist Ruth Braunstein, Richard L. Wood from the University of New Mexico and Brad R. Fulton from Duke University.

Scheduled to appear in the August edition of the American Sociological Review, the study found that interfaith prayer practices played a key role in bridging cultural differences within diverse faith-based community organizing groups in the United States.

“The prayer practices we observed appear to play a crucial role in binding participants together across significant racial and socioeconomic differences,” Braunstein said in a release. “They do this by being inclusive of multiple faith traditions, celebrating the diversity of the group, and encouraging individuals to interact with each other.”

These findings may come as a surprise in a world where religion and prayer often divide people with differing views. Braunstein found, however, that “bridging cultural practices," like prayer, worked to create a new sense of shared identity within groups.

"Most talk of diversity rests on an understanding of "differences" that are rooted in fixed categories, like racial groups, genders, social classes, etc.," Braunstein told HuffPost.

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