The Diversity of Religious Diversity. Using Census and NCS Methodology in Order to Map and Assess the Religious Diversity of a Whole Country

Religious diversity is often captured in “mapping studies” that use mostly qualitative methods in order to map and assess the religious communities in a given area. While these studies are useful, they often present weaknesses in that they treat only limited geographic regions, provide limited possibilities for comparing across religious groups and cannot test theories. In this article, we show how a census and a quantitative national congregations study (NCS) methodology can be combined in order to map and assess the religious diversity of a whole country (Switzerland), overcoming the problems mentioned above. We outline the methodological steps and selected results concerning organizational, geographic, structural, and cultural diversity

The Established and the Newcomers. A Weberian-Bourdieusian View of Congregations in the Swiss Religious Field

Using the Weberian/Bourdieusian field theory and a representative National Congregation Study (NCS), we measure and compare the activities and resources of established and newcomer congregations across all major religious traditions in Switzerland. As expected, establishment status is linked to strong privileges for the established groups. Other than expected, established groups do not seem to compete with newcomer groups by using exclusion strategies, but explicitly seek ecumenical and interreligious contacts and are very tolerant concerning individual social and religious diversity. We suggest that this does not contradict the Weberian/Bourdieusian field theory, but can itself be seen as a strategy by established groups to preserve their threatened establishment status