Search

When it comes to religious freedom measurement, we’ve come a long way. We have moved from a period marked by widespread disinterest in religion—shaped largely by secularization theory—to a growing recognition of religion’s role in international relations, and now to the development of increasingly sophisticated instruments for measuring the freedom of religion and belief (FoRB). These advancements have brought meaningful benefits: they help document the global state of religious freedom, describe and quantify violations, enable cross-national comparisons, and establish religious freedom firmly on the international agenda.

Still, progress has not been without problems. In my 2022 article “The Tyranny of Religious Freedom Rankings” for The Review of Faith & International Affairs (RFIA), I argued that rankings can distort incentives by encouraging what social scientists call “rank-seeking behavior.” Governments tend to react not to the substance of a report but to their position on a list. This dynamic has become even more evident since Nigeria was designated as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) by the United States, a label that has intensified the government’s defensiveness. Successive administrations have disputed international assessments highlighting widespread religious violence, insisting that such conflicts are “not religious” or that the country is being unfairly portrayed. These reactions reveal how easily measurement can become politicized, deflecting attention from the structural causes of religious discrimination and repression, and the overlapping roles of local powerholders, vigilante groups, and criminal networks. In such cases, a ranking or designation becomes a political irritant rather than an invitation to policy reform.

At the same time, and despite these political sensitivities, measurement practice has continued to evolve. In my more recent RFIA article, “Measuring What Matters: Evolving Metrics of Religious Freedom,” I distinguish among four types of instruments: narrative-coded, expert-based, survey, and event-based. Each captures a distinct slice of reality. The future of religious freedom research, I believe, lies not in finding the single best index, but in combining approaches to form a more complete picture.

And we’re still innovating. The Violent Incidents Database (VID) is one such initiative. Rather than relying solely on annual reports or coded surveys, the VID collects and classifies discrete events of violence against religious groups. It allows us to trace micro-dynamics of vulnerability: who is affected, by whom, where, and why. In Mexico, for instance, the data reveal how religious leaders become targets when they challenge organized crime or defend community integrity.

Another initiative, the Global Religious Freedom Index, based on data from the Religion and State Project, takes a complementary approach. It integrates multiple dimensions of restriction—from government regulation to social discrimination—and seeks to balance global comparability with contextual nuance. The goal is not to replace existing tools but to enrich them with a more holistic view of how FoRB actually operates in society.

Another frontier in this evolving field is the effort to measure not only restrictions but also positive expressions of religious freedom. Too often, our attention is limited to documenting violations, as if FoRB could only be understood through its absence. Genuine, sustainable freedom is also visible in acts of cooperation, interfaith dialogue, social contribution, and the public good generated by faith communities. An innovative initiative in this direction is being developed by Maksym Vasin and the NGO Love Your Neighbor Community (LYNC), which is creating a pair of “positive indices” for Central Asia. These tools aim to assess constructive engagement between religious communities and the state, as well as the social capital produced by faith-based actors. Measuring such positive dynamics is challenging, but it reminds us that freedom of religion or belief is not just about removing obstacles. It is about nurturing the conditions that allow faith to enrich public life.

Underlying these efforts is a simple conviction: measurement should serve understanding, not competition. We do not measure religious freedom to crown winners and losers, but to diagnose problems and guide action. Rankings may be appealing to policymakers because they simplify complexity, but they often do so at the cost of accuracy. The challenge is to produce data that remain useful without losing sight of the human realities behind the numbers.

We still tend to measure what is easiest to count rather than what is most meaningful. As a result, discrimination by state actors often receives more attention than that carried out by non-state actors. In Latin America, threats to religious freedom frequently come from local authorities, criminal organizations, or indigenous leaders rather than from national governments. These actors enforce informal rules that determine who may worship, where, and how. When a community expels converts, when a criminal group punishes a pastor for speaking against corruption, or when a woman hides her faith to avoid social reprisal, the violation is real, even if it does not fit neatly into a state-centric framework.

Just as non-state actors remain underexamined in most global datasets, the subnational dimension of religious freedom is also a significant blind spot. As Jason Klocek and I discuss in our study on measuring subnational variation, the realities of freedom of religion or belief are often unevenly distributed within countries. National-level indices may record a stable or even improving situation, while localities experience acute deterioration. Provinces under the control of organized crime, indigenous jurisdictions applying customary law, or urban neighborhoods dominated by gangs can all become zones where religious freedom is effectively suspended. Yet these patterns are rarely captured in cross-national comparisons. Recognizing this gap is essential, because what happens at the subnational level often shapes how freedom of religion is lived or denied far more directly than national policies do.

Capturing these “gray zones” requires combining quantitative and qualitative methods. Event-based data can reveal patterns of violence; ethnographic and local studies can explain their meaning. This interplay between data and narrative, between numbers and stories, is where I believe the future of religious freedom research lies.

Ultimately, the task of measuring religious freedom is not only technical but moral. It asks us to balance precision with empathy, and analysis with listening. Religious freedom is often described as an individual right, but it is also a social process. It depends on relationships of trust, tolerance, and dialogue that cannot be legislated into existence. No dataset, however sophisticated, can fully grasp this dimension.

Still, data can help us ask better questions, challenge assumptions, and design more effective responses. We may never be able to measure religious freedom perfectly. But we can measure it more wisely, more contextually, and more compassionately. That is what really matters.