Taiwan ranked second in the latest Religious Diversity Index by U.S.-based Pew Research Center, reflecting the success of local public and private sector efforts in promoting social diversity and freedom of religious belief.
The country scored 8.2 on a scale of 0 to 10, second only to Singapore at 9 and followed by Vietnam at 7.7, in the Global Religious Diversity report released earlier this month by Pew as part of its Religion and Public Life Project.
Based on the 2010 statistics of 232 countries and territories, the study looks at the percentage of a nation’s population belonging to eight major religious groups, including Buddhists, Christians, Hindus and Muslims.
The closer a country comes to having equal shares of the eight groups, the higher its score on the RDI, which is divided into four ranges: very high, high, moderate and low.
According to the report, Taiwan is one of 12 countries with a very high level of religious diversity, along with Hong Kong, mainland China and South Korea. No countries in Europe, North America or the Middle East-North Africa region received a very high score in the survey.
Analysis shows that at 44.2 percent, folk religion is the leading religious belief among Taiwan’s population of 23 million.
This is followed by Buddhism at 21.3 percent, other religions at 16.2 percent and Christianity at 5.5 percent. Nearly 13 percent of the population considered themselves nonreligious.
Huang Cheng-hsiung, deputy director of the Department of Civil Affairs under the ROC Ministry of the Interior, believes Taiwan fully deserves its top-notch index ranking.
Taiwan’s special history and immigrant culture that embraces diversity is one of the reasons for the result, he said. “The government respects the autonomy of all religious groups without any prejudice, as long as they do not violate the country’s social customs.”
Huang said the MOI is implementing a project aimed at promoting Taiwan’s religious diversity, cultural creativity and tourism to a broader global audience. (SFC-JSM)
Write to Taiwan Today at ttonline@mofa.gov.tw