Interfaith studies

The area's importance was recognized by UNESCO's UNITWIN Network for Inter-Religious Dialogue and Intercultural Understanding (IDIU)[4] due to the large number of interreligious and interfaith International non-governmental organizations that use the area's qualitative research and data analysis. The Institute for Global Engagement (IGE) has reiterated the value of the faculty for International relations with the publishing of the "Interfaith on the World Stage" special edition of the Review of Faith & International Affairs.[5] Examples of interfaith study are the "Considerations and Guidance for the Humanitarian Engagement with Religious Leaders" of the University of York Generating Respect Project,[6] that assists the implementation of international humanitarian law, and the Search for Common Ground "Universal Code of Conduct for Holy Sites" development analyses.[7]

According to the University of Amsterdam's Faculty of Religion & Theology, "Interfaith initiatives are seen as promising sites for societal change and personal transformation; however, many questions about the actual outcomes of such initiatives have remained unanswered."[8] This usage of interfaith diplomacy by the most varied different fields of humanity's enterprise without proper methodology, called many agents worldwide to develop dozens of nonformal education and higher education interfaith studies programs and journals now internationally unionized in the Association for Interreligious / Interfaith Studies (AIIS), that declares its own foundation historical necessity as the growing interest in the field professionalization at the American Academy of Religion (AAR)'s "Interreligious and Interfaith Studies Unit" forum.[9]

The 'Auxiliary Officers' of the PoWR's 1893 World Congress of Religions, probably the first modern interfaith studies and religious studies summit.

The World Congress of Religions had its inaugural summit in the 1893 Parliament of the World's Religions (PoWR), the first modern interfaith meeting.[10] This inspired the creation of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR), the first religious studies association, in the 1900 Religious History Congress in Paris. Throughout the twentieth century, interfaith studies has had the role of feeding religious studies, at the same time that defining rule of law compliance standards to it, through the analysis of its usage by interfaith-based organizations.

The Religious Freedom and Business Foundation (RFBF)'s Corporate Religious Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (REDI) Index pledges that interfaith studies are important because of the relations between religion and health by stating that "religious freedom is the next diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) field of inquiry for environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), which is important also for non-governmental organizations.[11]

The discipline defining "Interreligious/Interfaith Studies" book cover

Since there are an ever increasing number of Interfaith marriages, families, groups, communities, and civil movements worldwide, we also require further studies areas related to interfaith multi-religious education, as it is being developed by World Religions Education for Kids, Arigatou International Global Network of Religions for Children (GNRC)], and the United States Agency for International Development Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) Learning Platform.