Open Questions
A research agenda for the field.
These questions came out of six workshops and a set of literature reviews, not from a single desk. Thirty-one scholars in psychology, theology, religious studies, and philosophy spent three years defining what the field does not yet know about how religious communities come to trust or distrust science.
The index
| ID | Question | Track |
|---|---|---|
| P1 | Motivated reasoning and religious group identity | Psychology |
| P2 | How domain-specific is skepticism | Psychology |
| P3 | Whether the link generalizes beyond the US | Psychology |
| P4 | Psychological distance and engagement with science | Psychology |
| P5 | Scientists perceived as social and cultural threat | Psychology |
| P6 | Which interventions actually work | Psychology |
| P7 | Spirituality versus orthodoxy as predictors | Psychology |
| P8 | Competing religious and scientific authority | Psychology |
| P9 | Moral intuitions, naturalness bias, "playing God" | Psychology |
| T1 | A theological history of trust in authority | Theology |
| T2 | A model of authority for lay accountability | Theology |
| T3 | Noetic effects of sin and common grace | Theology |
| T4 | The virtues critical trust requires | Theology |
| T5 | Providence and scientific risk claims | Theology |
| T6 | Clergy and seminaries as science translators | Theology |
| T7 | Institutions for evaluating scientific knowledge | Theology |
| RS1 | Populist church order and anti-expert attitudes | Religious studies |
| RS2 | Theological commitment or political identity | Religious studies |
| RS3 | Non-US Christian traditions and science | Religious studies |
| RS4 | Conspiracy theories and Christian nationalism | Religious studies |
| RS5 | Apocalyptic thinking, climate, and vaccines | Religious studies |
| RS6 | Media ecosystems and religious disinformation | Religious studies |
| PH1 | What it means to trust "science" | Philosophy |
| PH2 | When skepticism is epistemically rational | Philosophy |
| PH3 | The value-laden character of science | Philosophy |
| PH4 | Motivational or fiduciary accounts of trust | Philosophy |
| PH5 | How alternative epistemologies are built | Philosophy |
| PH6 | Whether religious expertise is knowledge | Philosophy |
| PH7 | Inductive risk in science communication | Philosophy |
| PH8 | What makes an institution trustworthy | Philosophy |
| PH9 | Well-placed trust after the replication crisis | Philosophy |
| I1 | Theology and psychology working together | Interdisciplinary |
| I2 | Operationalizing and testing critical trust | Interdisciplinary |
| I3 | Theologically designed, scientifically tested interventions | Interdisciplinary |
| I4 | How authority structures mediate information | Interdisciplinary |
| I5 | Religious diversity and global science attitudes | Interdisciplinary |
The result is thirty-six questions and five unresolved tensions. They are written for researchers deciding what to study next, and for funders deciding what to support. The questions divide by discipline, though the most valuable work will cross those lines. Theology and religious studies divide by mode rather than subject. The theology track is constructive, asking what the church should believe and how it should form believers. The religious studies track is descriptive, asking how doctrine and church structure actually generate skepticism. The five tensions are the sharpest part, because on each one the project's own outputs disagree, which means a well-designed study could settle a live dispute rather than add another data point. The index lists every question with its track. Each has a short gloss below on why it matters and what is already known. If you are working on any of these, or want to fund work on them, the directors would like to hear from you. Contact details are on the About page.
Psychology and social science
Source: the Jong literature review, the psychology workshops, and the Current Opinion in Psychology special issue.
P1
What role does motivated reasoning play in religious science skepticism, and how does it interact with religious group identity? Psychology
Motivated reasoning lets people reach the conclusion their group already holds while still feeling that they followed the evidence. How much of religious science skepticism works this way, and how it interacts with the pull of religious identity rather than doctrine as such, is unsettled. An intervention that corrects reasoning will fail if the real driver is belonging.
P2
How domain-specific is religious science skepticism (evolution vs climate vs vaccines vs AI)? Psychology
Skepticism fragments by domain, with different drivers for vaccines, climate, and evolution (Rutjens et al., 2022). The question is how far that fragmentation goes, and whether newer domains like artificial intelligence follow the same pattern. The answer decides whether interventions can transfer across domains or must be built one at a time. See tension U5.
P3
To what extent does the religion-science skepticism link generalize beyond the US, and what explains cross-cultural variation? Psychology
Most of the evidence comes from the United States, yet across sixty countries the relationship between religiosity and science attitudes runs in every direction (McPhetres, Jong, and Zuckerman, 2021). What explains the variation, and which US findings are local, is unknown. Cross-cultural designs are the way to find out, and the agenda gives them preference.
P4
What is the role of psychological distance in religious communities' engagement with science? Psychology
Psychological distance describes how near or far a risk or a claim feels in time, place, and social relevance. Whether distance helps explain why some scientific claims land as urgent inside religious communities while others feel remote has not been tested. It connects to why climate, felt as distant, can meet different resistance than a local health decision.
P5
How do perceptions of scientists as social or cultural threats drive mistrust among evangelicals? Psychology
American evangelicals who mistrust science tend to perceive scientists as a social and cultural threat rather than as people who are simply wrong (Chinn et al., 2024). How that threat perception forms, and how much of the mistrust it carries, would tell researchers where to aim. If the threat is social, the repair is social, and more facts will not reach it.
P6
What interventions are most effective for improving trust in science within religious communities? Psychology
The intervention research the field has produced was tested almost entirely on general populations, with religious communities rarely present as samples. What works inside actual congregations, where identity and authority are in play, is almost entirely unstudied. The trusted-messenger account meets its sharpest test here.
P7
Does spirituality predict science skepticism differently than religious orthodoxy? Psychology
Spirituality and doctrinal orthodoxy are different things, and they may pull in different directions. Vaccine skepticism has been found to track spiritual belief while evolution skepticism tracks orthodoxy (Rutjens et al., 2022). How cleanly the two can be separated, and what each predicts on its own, remains open.
P8
How do competing authority structures, religious and scientific, shape trust decisions? Psychology
When a religious authority and a scientific authority disagree, a layperson has to decide whom to believe. The question is how that decision is actually made, and what tips it. It sits at the center of the project, because trust is finally a judgment about authority. See also I4.
P9
How do moral intuitions and the naturalness bias, including "playing God" concerns, shape religious responses to science and emerging technologies, and can theological reframing address them? Psychology
A naturalness bias, expressed in "playing God" worries, correlates with religiosity but has not been tested in religious populations (Meier et al., 2026). The question has two halves: how these moral intuitions shape responses to science and new technology, and whether theological reframing can move them where facts cannot. No single discipline can answer it alone.
Theology
Constructive track. Source: the Reeves literature review, the theology workshop, and the Routledge volume.
T1
What is the theological history of trust in human authority, and what does that history offer for theorizing trust in science? Theology
The Christian tradition worked out a detailed account of how finite creatures come to know in dependence on the testimony of others, from Augustine through Aquinas and Scotus. What that history offers a modern account of trust in scientific experts has not been worked out. The tradition theorized trust in an infallible divine witness, and the distance to fallible human experts is where the work remains.
T2
What theological model of authority can specify how lay believers hold scientific experts accountable without either deferring blindly or claiming competence they lack? Theology
Critical trust needs a model of authority, and theology has several to offer, from prophetic to priestly to conciliar. The question is which one lets lay believers hold experts accountable without either blind deference or the pretense of expertise they do not have. This is the constructive core of the program. See critical trust.
T3
How do the noetic effects of sin and the doctrine of common grace bear on when and how Christian communities should trust scientific institutions? Theology
Two doctrines pull against each other here. The noetic effects of sin can be read to make secular experts untrustworthy, while common grace can ground confidence in knowledge produced outside the church. How they should be balanced is a live problem, since one is often used to license distrust while the other is left aside.
T4
Which intellectual and spiritual virtues does critical trust require, and how are they formed through congregational practice, catechesis, and worship? Theology
If critical trust is a disposition, it has to be formed, not merely argued for. Which virtues it requires, and how ordinary church practice cultivates them, is where the concept meets the ground. It moves the concept from the seminar to the pew, which is where it has to work.
T5
How does a doctrine of providence shape faithful responses to scientific risk claims about climate and pandemics, without collapsing into either fatalism or denial? Theology
A strong doctrine of providence can slide into fatalism, the sense that God controls outcomes so human precaution is beside the point, or into denial of the risk itself. The question is how providence should shape a faithful response to climate and pandemic risk without either failure. Volume work by van den Brink on providence and eschatology bears directly on it.
T6
How can clergy and seminaries be science "translators" for congregations? Theology
The finding that trusted messengers carry trust puts clergy at the center of any repair. What it would take for pastors and seminaries to translate science for their congregations well is the practical problem. It is practical, and it depends on formation that most seminaries do not currently offer.
T7
How should theological communities develop institutions for evaluating scientific knowledge? Theology
Individuals cannot evaluate technical science on their own, and neither can most congregations. The question is what institutions a theological community would need to assess scientific claims responsibly. It treats trust as an institutional problem rather than a matter of individual judgment.
Religious studies
Descriptive track. Source: the Reeves literature review, the religious studies workshop, and the Routledge volume.
RS1
How do low-church and populist forms of church order sustain anti-expert attitudes in actual congregations, and where do they fail to? Religious studies
American evangelicalism took shape as a populist movement that trusted the plain reader over the credentialed authority, and that structure resists scientific expertise as it once resisted ecclesiastical expertise (Hatch). How this works in actual congregations, and where it breaks down, is the empirical gap. The "where it fails" half matters as much as the rule.
RS2
Is evangelical science skepticism better explained by theological commitment or by political and cultural identity, and how can the two be distinguished in practice? Religious studies
Doctrine and political identity are tangled together in evangelical science skepticism, and separating them is hard because they usually travel together. The question is which does the real work, and how a study could tell them apart. This is the empirical heart of tension U1.
RS3
How do non-US Christian traditions handle science engagement differently? Religious studies
The dominant picture is built from US White evangelicalism, which is not representative of global Christianity. How other Christian traditions engage science, and what their differences reveal about what is contingent in the US case, is largely uncharted. Comparative work is scarce and needed.
RS4
How do conspiracy theories interact with Christian nationalism and science rejection? Religious studies
Conspiracy thinking, Christian nationalism, and science rejection often appear together, but the links between them are not well mapped. The question is how they reinforce one another. Apocalyptic conspiracism, in particular, forms a parallel epistemic community with its own media (Sturm).
RS5
How does apocalyptic and eschatological thinking shape climate and vaccine skepticism in Christian communities, and how does it spread? Religious studies
Eschatological speculation can turn ordinary developments in technology and government into objects of dread, which recasts climate and vaccines as signs rather than problems. How this thinking shapes skepticism, and how it spreads, has not been mapped. It connects doctrine to the media networks that carry it.
RS6
How do digital media ecosystems and religious disinformation networks sustain science-skeptical counter-knowledge within Christian communities? Religious studies
A content analysis of 10,697 articles from religious disinformation sites found five recurring traits binding science skepticism to identity threat. How these digital ecosystems sustain a rival knowledge system over time is the structural question. The problem is infrastructure, not a one-time deficit of facts.
Philosophy
Source: the de Ridder literature review, the philosophy workshop, and the Routledge volume.
PH1
What does it mean to trust "science": methods, institutions, findings, or scientists? Philosophy
"Trust in science" hides an ambiguity, because a person can trust the method while doubting an institution, or trust a finding while distrusting the scientist who reports it. The question is what the object of trust actually is. Getting this right is prior to almost every other question on the list.
PH2
When is religious skepticism about science epistemically rational? Philosophy
Some skepticism is warranted, since institutions do fail and some published findings do not hold up. The question is when religious skepticism about science is rational rather than merely motivated. Critical trust needs this line drawn, because it claims there is a defensible middle between deference and refusal.
PH3
How does the value-laden nature of science affect its trustworthiness for religious communities? Philosophy
Science is not value-free, and communities that sense this are not simply mistaken. How the values embedded in scientific practice bear on whether religious communities should trust it has no settled answer. It takes the concern seriously rather than dismissing it as anti-science.
PH4
Do motivational or fiduciary accounts better explain religious science skepticism? Philosophy
Philosophers offer competing accounts of what trust is, some emphasizing the truster's motives and others the trusted party's obligations. The question is which better explains religious science skepticism. The choice shapes what a repair would even consist of.
PH5
How do non-secular science institutions construct alternative epistemologies? Philosophy
Creationist and other non-secular institutions build their own credentialing and their own standards of evidence, producing a parallel epistemology rather than a simple absence of one. How that construction works has not been studied. It treats the rival system as something to understand rather than only to refute.
PH6
Does religious expertise constitute a legitimate form of knowledge? Philosophy
Religious communities claim a kind of knowledge, often about meaning and wisdom rather than mechanism. Whether religious expertise is a legitimate form of knowledge, and how it relates to scientific expertise, is the deeper problem. Keeping the two kinds of claim distinct dissolves some apparent conflicts without erasing the real ones.
PH7
What role should inductive risk play in science communication to religious publics? Philosophy
Inductive risk is the risk of being wrong when the evidence is incomplete, and how much of it to accept is partly a value judgment. What role it should play when scientists communicate with religious publics is unresolved. Honesty about uncertainty may build more trust than confident overstatement.
PH8
What makes a scientific institution, as opposed to an individual scientist, trustworthy, and how should that bear on religious communities' trust in science? Philosophy
We trust experts less because they are individually brilliant than because they speak for institutions with standards and checks (Longino). What makes an institution trustworthy, and how that should shape a religious community's trust, is where the argument turns. It shifts the target from the lone scientist to the system.
PH9
Given the replication crisis and questionable research practices, what would well-placed trust in science look like, and how can non-specialists identify reliable findings? Philosophy
The replication crisis is a real reason for calibrated caution, not a warrant for blanket rejection. What well-placed trust looks like after it, and how a non-specialist can tell reliable findings from shaky ones, has no easy answer. It gives critical trust its hardest practical test.
Interdisciplinary questions
These cross disciplinary lines. Proposals that adjudicate a tension or bridge fields were given first consideration.
I1
How do theological beliefs interact with psychological mechanisms to produce science skepticism? Interdisciplinary
Doctrine and cognition are usually studied separately, by people who do not attend each other's conferences. How theological beliefs and psychological mechanisms combine to produce skepticism has barely been asked. Answering it requires a theologian and a psychologist on the same project.
I2
Can philosophical frameworks for "critical trust" be operationalized and empirically tested? Interdisciplinary
Critical trust is a philosophical proposal, and until it is measurable it cannot be tested. The question is whether it can be operationalized and studied empirically. This is the bridge between the concept and the evidence, and the agenda treats it as a priority.
I3
What interventions designed by theologians and tested by social scientists are most effective? Interdisciplinary
An intervention grounded in a community's own theology may reach people that a generic message cannot. Which theologically designed interventions actually work when tested with social-scientific rigor has not been tried. It pairs constructive theology with measurement.
I4
How do authority structures in religious communities mediate scientific information across traditions and cultures? Interdisciplinary
Scientific information rarely reaches a believer unmediated. It passes through pastors, networks, and institutions that vary across traditions and cultures. The question is how those authority structures shape what gets through, and how the mediation differs from one community to another.
I5
What role does religious diversity within Christianity play in science attitudes globally? Interdisciplinary
Christianity is not one thing, and its internal diversity may explain much of the variation in science attitudes worldwide. The question is what role that diversity plays. It guards against treating one national subculture as the whole.
Five unresolved tensions
These are the sharpest openings in the agenda. On each one the project's own outputs disagree, which means a well-designed study could settle a dispute the field is currently having with itself rather than add another finding to a pile.
U1 · Doctrine or identity?
Theological analyses in the Routledge volume find specific doctrinal commitments doing distinct epistemic work, with van den Brink on eschatology and providence. Other contributions argue that identity-protective cognition drives skepticism and doctrine supplies the after-the-fact justification (Celestini), or that the categories of doctrine and identity are themselves historically contingent (Schaefer). Does doctrinal commitment predict domain-specific skepticism once group identity and political affiliation are controlled? No study has tested this with serious theological measurement, and the volume's own contributors disagree about the answer.
U2 · Is the deficit model actually dead?
The volume and the special issue largely treat the deficit model, the idea that skepticism is a shortage of facts, as refuted. Yet conversational AI interventions durably reduced science skepticism by supplying facts and arguments, with no trusted messenger and no community structure at all (Hornsey et al., 2026). Either information works when its delivery avoids provoking resistance, or those effects will not replicate in high-commitment religious populations. No one has tested which, and the project's own theory of change depends on the answer.
U3 · Where do trusted messengers stop working?
Church of England leaders successfully mediated trust in vaccines by translating them into the language of gift and neighborly love (Kamwendo). But apocalyptic conspiracism operates as a sealed counter-knowledge system whose media networks bypass clergy entirely (Sturm). Which communities are reachable through institutional religious leadership, and which have alternative authority structures that make clergy irrelevant? The answer marks the boundary of the trusted-messenger approach, and with it the limit of the project's own strategy.
U4 · The compatibility paradox
Religious individuals perceive more compatibility between religion and science than the nonreligious do (Rios and Mackey, 2026; Leicht et al., 2021). The same populations show lower acceptance of evolution and higher vaccine hesitancy. One proposed resolution is that esteem for science is exactly what licenses the selective rejection of particular claims, since a person who respects science can treat their own exceptions as the reasonable ones (Sutton and Leach, 2026). Whether stated compatibility and domain rejection really coexist in the same individuals, and why, is unresolved and partly a dispute about measurement.
U5 · Domain-specific phenomena or a general skeptical disposition?
Survey evidence shows skepticism fragmenting into domains with different drivers (Rutjens et al., 2022). Analysis of religious disinformation finds the opposite, the same five traits recurring across evolution, vaccines, and climate. Network analysis splits the difference, with genetic modification, vaccine, and evolution skepticism forming a mutually reinforcing cluster while climate skepticism stands apart (Chambon and Rutjens, 2026). Whether interventions can transfer across domains, or must be built one domain at a time, depends on which picture is right.
If you are designing a study that could settle one of these, or want to fund work on the agenda, the directors would like to hear from you. Contact details are on the About page.